The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live in

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Macmillan and Company, 1892 - 429 pages

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Page 27 - Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone ; The flowers appear on the earth ; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land ; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, And the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Page 152 - Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears; Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
Page 100 - FLOWER in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower — but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.
Page 151 - GOD Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man ; without which buildings and palaces are but gross...
Page 314 - There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, •To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean— roll!
Page 199 - THERE rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
Page 322 - Yet more ! the billows and the depths have more ! High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast ! They hear not now the booming waters roar, The battle-thunders will not break their rest. Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave...
Page 125 - But the leaves of the herbage at our feet take all kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Starshaped, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, sinuated ; in whorls, in tufts, in spires, in wreaths endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from footstalk to blossom ; they seem perpetually to tempt our watchfulness, and take delight in outstripping our wonder.
Page 234 - Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in clouds ; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace ; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made, with that transcendent light which we could not have...
Page xii - tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy : for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings.

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