The Powers of Genius: A Poem, in Three Parts

Front Cover
A. Dickens, 1801 - Genius - 127 pages
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 74 - Shine not in vain ; nor think, though men were none That heav'n would want spectators, GOD want praise: Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep. All these with ceaseless praise his works behold Both day and night : how often from the steep Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air, Sole, or responsive each to other's note, Singing their great Creator ? oft in bands While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk.
Page 90 - Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam, purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble...
Page 72 - In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?
Page 70 - And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased ! the golden city ceased ! The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.
Page 70 - Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
Page 90 - ... and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not these licensing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint.
Page 89 - Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them.
Page 71 - When He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder. Then did He see it, and declare it. He prepared it, yea, and searched it out...
Page 79 - Who with her radiant finger still'd the roar Of thunder, chas'd the clouds, and laid the winds, And grisly spectres, which the fiend had rais'd • To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.
Page 76 - Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light. Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful?

Bibliographic information