Peter's letters to his kinsfolk [signed Peter Morris], 2nd ed, Volume 3

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Page 297 - Through the huge oaks of Evandale, Whose limbs a thousand years have worn, What sullen roar comes down the gale, And drowns the hunter's pealing horn ? Mightiest of all the beasts of chase, That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race, The Mountain Bull comes thundering on.
Page 200 - and the punctual stars, While all things else are gathering to their homes, Advance, and in the firmament of heaven Glitter — but undisturbing, undisturbed ; As if their silent company were charged With peaceful admonitions for the heart Of all-beholding Man, earth's thoughtful lord ; Then, in full many a region, once like this The assured domain of calm simplicity And pensive quiet, an unnatural light Prepared for never-resting labour's eyes, Breaks from a many-windowed fabric huge ; And at the...
Page 269 - ... but which contrasts in a wonderful manner with the dazzling watery glare they exhibit when expanded in their sockets, and illuminated into all their -flame and fervour in some moment of high entranced enthusiasm. But the shape of the forehead is, perhaps, the most singular part of the whole visage ; and, indeed, it presents a mixture so very singular, of forms commonly exhibited only in the widest separation, that it is no wonder I should have required some little time to comprehend the meaning...
Page 267 - I was a good deal surprised and perplexed with the first glimpse I obtained of his countenance, for the light that streamed faintly upon it for the moment, did not reveal...
Page 298 - Mightiest of all the beasts of chase, That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race, The mountain bull comes thundering on. Fierce, on the hunter's quiver'd band, He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow, Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand. And tosses high his mane of snow.
Page 201 - And, as they issue from the illumined Pile, A fresh Band meets them, at the crowded door,— And in the Courts — and where the rumbling Stream, That turns the multitude of dizzy wheels, Glares, like a troubled Spirit, in its bed Among the rocks below. Men, Maidens, Youths, Mother and little Children, Boys and Girls, Enter, and each the wonted task resumes Within this Temple — where is offered up To Gain — the Master Idol of the Realm, Perpetual sacrifice.
Page 174 - ... requested to give their opinion of it — for, in the mixing of the sherbet lies, according to the Glasgow creed, at least one half of the whole battle. This being approved by an audible smack from the lips of the umpires, the rum was added to the beverage, I suppose in something about the proportion of one to seven. Last of all, the maker cut a few limes, and running each section rapidly round the rim of his bowl, squeezed in enough of this more delicate acid to flavour the whole composition....
Page 270 - ... there is an arch of imagination, carrying out the summit boldly and roundly, in a style to which the heads of very few poets present anything comparable, while over this again there is a grand apex of high and solemn veneration and love, such as might have graced the bust of Plato himself, and such as in living men I had never beheld equalled in any but the majestic head of Canova. The whole is edged with a few crisp dark locks, which stand forth boldly, and afford a fine relief to the death-like...
Page 141 - The great beauty of this man's deportment, to my mind, lies in the unaffected simplicity with which he retains, in many respects, the external manners and appearance of his original station — blending all, however, with a softness and manly courtesy, derived, perhaps, in the main, rather from the natural delicacy of his mind and temperament, than from the influence of anything he has learned by mixing more largely in the world.
Page 72 - gainst the Alpine shocks Of eddying storms ; yet springs the trunk, and mocks The howling tempest, till its height and frame Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, And grew a giant tree ; — the mind may grow the same.

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