The Works of the English Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, 3. köide

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Samuel Johnson
C. Bathurst, 1779

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Page 68 - O thou that, with surpassing glory crowned, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god Of this new World — at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads — to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 0 Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state 1 fell, how glorious once above thy sphere, Till pride and worse ambition threw me down, Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King ! Ah, wherefore?
Page 116 - But drive far off the barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears To rapture, till the savage clamour drown'd Both harp and voice ; nor could the Muse defend Her son.
Page 93 - 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 103 - Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers ; Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand. This day I have begot whom I declare My only Son, and on this holy hill Him have anointed, whom ye now behold At my right hand; your head I him appoint; And by myself have sworn, to him shall bow All knees in heaven, and shall confess him Lord...
Page 75 - Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain...
Page 92 - Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light, Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs And choral symphonies, day without night, Circle his throne rejoicing; ye in Heaven, On earth join, all ye creatures, to extol Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Page 50 - Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

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