Poems: For the Most Part Occasional

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E. Moxon, 1838 - 199 pages
 

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Page 88 - Those seas are dangerous, greybeards swear, Whose sea-beach is the goblet's brim ; And true it is they drown old Care, But what care we for him, So we but float on wine!
Page 148 - Is the tender thought of thee. I think on thee, my sister, I think on thee at even, When I see the first and fairest star Steal peaceful out of heaven. I hear thy sweet and touching voice In each soft breeze that blows, Whether it waft red autumn leaf, Or fan the summer rose. 'Mid the waste of yon lone heath, By this desert moaning sea, I mourn for thee, my Charlotte, And shall ever mourn for thee.
Page 165 - How sweet to win one calm, uncrowded day, Where congregated man hath passed away! For these old city-walls, a half-league round, Are but the girdle now of rural ground; These stones from far-off fields, toil-gathered thence For man's protection, but a farm's ring-fence; The fruit of all his planning and his pain By Nature's certain hand resumed again! Yet eyes instructed, as along they pass, May learn from crossing lines of stunted grass, And stunted wheat-stems, that refuse to grow, What intersecting...
Page 20 - A peaceful symbol on a warlike banner ! And oft, I ween, in many a distant camp, 'Mid the sharp neigh of steeds, and clash of cymbals, And jingle of the nodding Moorish bells, When he hath caught that image o'er the tents, Hath he bethought him of the placid hours When Thou wast whitening his night-feeding flocks On Yemen's happy hills ; and then, perchance, Hath sighed to think of war...
Page 187 - For our behoof, their place hath won ; And Christian altars overlay Yon temple's old foundation stone ; And in Minerva's vacant cell Sublimest Wisdom deigns to dwell. And where, within some deep shy wood, And seen but half through curving bough, In silent marble Dian stood, Behold ! a holier Virgin now Hath sanctified the solitude ; And thou, meek Mary ! — Mother — thou Dost hallow each old pagan spot, Or storied stream, or fabled grot.
Page 24 - Or adding a yet paler pensiveness To the pale olive-tree ; or, yet more near us, Were flickering back from wall reticulate' Of ruin old. But when that orb of Thine Had clomb to the mid-concave, then broad light Was flung around o'er all those girding cliffs, And groves, and villages, and fortress towers, And the far circle of that lake-like sea, Till the whole grew to one expanded sense Of peacefulness, one atmosphere of love, Where the Soul breathed as native, and mere Body Sublimed to Spirit. "...
Page 20 - As warning thy departure. Yet, some time, Ye shone together ; and we then might feel How they the ancient masters of that land, The dwellers on the banks of Rubicon, Who saw what we were seeing, uninstruct...
Page 81 - d the transient dew, Then first I fear'd that Dove's own vows Were transient too ! At eve I sought the well-known stream Where, wont to rove, We breathed so oft, by twilight gleam, Our vows of love ; I...
Page 81 - I stopped upon the pleasant brink, And saw the wave glide past ; Ah me ! I could not help but think Love glides as fast. " Then, all along the moonlight glen So soft, — so fair, — I sought thy truant steps agen, — Thou wert not there. The clouds held on their busy way Athwart the waning Moon ; And such, I said, Love's fitful ray, And wanes as soon.
Page 24 - ... towers, And the far circle of that lake-like sea, Till the whole grew to one expanded sense Of peacefulness, one atmosphere of love, Where the Soul breathed as native, and mere Body Sublimed to Spirit. " She, too, stood beside us, Our human type of Thee ; the Pure, the Peaceful, The Gentle, — potent in her gentleness ! And, as she raised her eyes to thy meek glory, In the fond aspiration of a heart, Which prized all beauty and all sanctity ; We saw, and loved to see, thy sainting ray Fall,...

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