The Lay of the Last Minstrel, a Poem

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Joseph Cushing; and E. Sargeant, New York, 1811 - 232 pages

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Page 121 - That day of wrath, .that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away, What power shall be the sinner's stay ? How shall he meet that dreadful day...
Page 102 - Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band, That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Page 1 - Stuarts' throne; The bigots of the iron time Had called his harmless art a crime. A wandering Harper, scorned and poor, He begged his bread from door to door, And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, The harp a king had loved to hear.
Page 39 - In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above ; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Page 89 - True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven : It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly ; It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die ; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind.
Page 102 - ... land of my sires! what mortal hand can e'er untie the filial band, that knits me to thy rugged strand! still, as I view each well-known scene, think what is now, and what hath been, seems as to me, of all bereft, sole friends thy woods and streams were left ; and thus I love them better still even in extremity of ill.
Page 114 - O listen, listen, ladies gay ! No haughty feat of arms I tell ; Soft is the note, and sad the lay, That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. — " Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew ! And, gentle ladye, deign to stay ! Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. " The blackening wave is edged with white : To inch* and rock the sea-mews fly; The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, Whose screams forebode...
Page 26 - The moon on the east oriel shone Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliaged tracery combined : Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand In many a freakish knot had twined, Then framed a spell when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone.
Page 2 - Duchess marked his weary pace, His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials tell That they should tend the old man well: For she had known adversity, Though born in such a high degree; In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!
Page 81 - CALL it not vain: — they do not err, Who say, that when the Poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies: Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone, For the departed Bard make moan; That mountains weep in crystal rill; That flowers in tears of balm distil; Through his loved groves that breezes sigh, And oaks, in deeper groan, reply; And rivers teach their rushing wave To murmur dirges...

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