The Works of Henry Van Dyke: Days off and other digressions

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C. Scribner's Sons, 1920 - Christian fiction
 

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Page 231 - HE clasps the crag with crooked hands ; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Page 153 - Here at the fountain's sliding foot, Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide : There, like a bird, it sits and sings, Then whets and combs its silver wings, And, till prepared for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various light.
Page 15 - Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness. 'Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking? ' — Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, Conversing as I may, I sit upon this old grey stone, And dream my time away.
Page 122 - And now, beloved Stowey! I behold Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend; And close behind them, hidden from my view, Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe And my babe's mother dwell in peace!
Page 114 - Lines Written in Early Spring I HEARD a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.
Page 155 - As the distressed virgin cast down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so does the rosy-coloured flower hang its head, growing paler and paler till it withers away. At length comes Perseus, in the shape of summer, dries up the surrounding waters and destroys the monsters, rendering the damsel a fruitful [mother, who then carries her head erect.
Page 154 - This plant is always fixed on some little turfy hillock in the midst of the swamps, as Andromeda herself was chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet, as the fresh water does the roots of the plant.
Page 109 - The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he ! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea.
Page 154 - As I contemplated it, I could not help thinking of Andromeda as described by the poets; and the more I meditated upon their descriptions, the more applicable they seemed to the little plant before me; so that, if these writers had had it in view, they could scarcely have contrived a more apposite fable.

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