The Life of Robert Burns

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G. Bell, 1882 - 349 pages
 

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Page 274 - THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes THY glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun...
Page 112 - There was a, strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.
Page 182 - Of a' the airts the wind can blaw I dearly like the West, For there the bonnie lassie lives, The lassie I lo'e best : There wild woods grow, and rivers row, And mony a hill between ; But day and night my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean. I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair : I hear her in the tunefu...
Page 178 - To make a happy fire-side clime To weans and wife, That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life.
Page 269 - ... ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet...
Page 80 - Again ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not, forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths...
Page 88 - ... at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock: I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, The Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast...
Page 111 - I may truly say, Virgilium vidi tantum. I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but...
Page 97 - Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales, Her heathy moors and winding vales ; The scenes where wretched fancy roves, Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! Farewell, my friends ! Farewell, my foes ! My peace with these, my love with those — The bursting tears my heart declare ; Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr 1 THE FAREWELL.
Page 7 - Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles.

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