Shelley

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Harper & brothers, 1879 - 189 pages

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Page 146 - He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again...
Page 160 - SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where all the long and lone daylight Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear — Swift be thy flight! Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; Kiss her until she be wearied out, Then wander o'er city and sea and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand — Come, long sought!
Page 151 - A light is past from the revolving year, And man, and woman; and what still is dear Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers near: 'Tis Adonais calls! Oh, hasten thither, No more let Life divide what Death can join together. LIV That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, That Beauty in which all things work and move...
Page 114 - Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, "I will compose poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness...
Page 148 - And many more, whose names on Earth are dark But whose transmitted effluence cannot die So long as fire outlives the parent spark, Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 'Thou art become as one of us...
Page 154 - Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are ; I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear...
Page 150 - The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.
Page 148 - And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
Page 106 - Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong, They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
Page 42 - Perigli siete giunti ali' occidente, A questa tanto picciola vigilia De' vostri sensi, ch' è del rimanente, Non vogliate negar l' esperienza , Diretro al Sol, del mondo senza gente. Considerate la vostra semenza : Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, Ma per seguir virtude e conoscenza.

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