Aspects of Poetry: Being Lectures Delivered at Oxford |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeneas Aeneid Ęschylus ancient artistic ballads bards beauty believe Ben Doran blank verse breath Burns called Carlyle Cebriones Celtic century character Coleridge colour criticism deep delight diction divine doubt earth emotion English English poetry epic expressed feeling felt finest French Revolution Gael Gaelic genius Georgics Glen Glen Etive heart heaven heroic highest Highland Homer human Iliad imagination impulse inspiration language light literary literature living look Lucretius melody mind modern moral mountain native nature never noble Ossian outward overmastering passage passed passion perfect perhaps poems poet's poetic poetry poets prose religious Rylstone scene Scotland Scott Scottish song seen sense sentiment Shakespeare Shelley Shelley's side singing Sophocles sorrow soul speak spirit strong style tender thee things thou thought touched true truth turn utter verse Virgil White Doe whole wonderful words Wordsworth Yarrow
Popular passages
Page 142 - Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean : And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war...
Page 81 - Alas ! alas ! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy: How would you be, If he, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made.
Page 209 - Yestreen when to the trembling string The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard, nor saw: Though this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a' the town, I sigh'd, and said amang them a', 'Ye are na Mary Morison.
Page 219 - ... Tasso sound ; With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow : a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! II.
Page 244 - Life of Life, thy lips enkindle With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles before they dwindle Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those looks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Page 244 - My soul is an enchanted boat, Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; And thine doth like an angel sit Beside the helm conducting it, Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
Page 192 - Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
Page 244 - Fair are others; none beholds thee, But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee From the sight, that liquid splendour, And all feel, yet see thee never, As I feel now, lost for ever! Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness, Till they fail, as I am failing, Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!
Page 329 - Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown, It must, or we shall rue it, We have a vision of our own, Ah! why should we undo it?
Page 340 - WHEN first, descending from the Moorlands, I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide Along a bare and open valley, The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide. When last along its banks I wandered, Through groves that had begun to shed Their golden leaves upon the pathways, My steps the Border-minstrel led. The Mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, Mid mouldering ruins low he lies ; And death upon the braes of Yarrow, Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes...