The Book of Poetry

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Bennett George Johns
James Burns, 1847 - English poetry - 186 pages
 

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Page 28 - Sweet smiling village ! loveliest of the lawn, Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, And desolation saddens all thy green ! One only master grasps the whole domain, And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain...
Page 51 - When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the...
Page 156 - I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Page 133 - All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept (As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems, That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep, And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Page 156 - The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
Page 121 - And ye five other wandering fires, that move In mystic dance not without song, resound His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light. Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth Of nature's womb, that in quaternion run Perpetual circle, multiform; and mix And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Page 118 - Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, — The seasons' difference : as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, This is no flattery : these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Page 116 - Where some, like magistrates correct at home, Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad, Others, like soldiers, armed in. their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor...
Page 34 - It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.
Page 104 - Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave. Await alike the' inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

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