The Seasons, and Castle of Indolence: To which is Prefixed the Life of the Author

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H.L. Brœnner, 1826 - 234 pages

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Page 36 - Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot, To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Page 176 - But wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not THEE ; marks not the mighty hand, That ever busy wheels the silent spheres...
Page 177 - While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. Bleat out afresh, ye hills ; ye mossy rocks, Retain the sound ; the broad responsive low, Ye valleys, raise ; for the GREAT SHEPHERD reigns, And His unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands...
Page 178 - Or if you rather choose the rural shade, And find a fane in every sacred grove ; There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's- lay, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll.
Page 91 - All ether softening, sober Evening takes Her wonted station in the middle air; A thousand shadows at her beck. First this She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still, In circle following circle, gathers round, To close the face of things. A fresher gale Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; While the quail clamours for his running mate.
Page 148 - Tis brightness all ; save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low the woods Bow their hoar head ; and ere the languid sun, Faint from the west, emits his evening ray, Earth's universal face, deep hid and chill, Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man.
Page 149 - Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first Against the window beats ; then brisk alights On the warm hearth ; then, hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is : Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet.
Page 148 - Through the hush'd air the whitening shower descends, At first thin wavering ; till at last the flakes Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow.
Page 115 - To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, And sweeten all the toils of human life: This be the female dignity and praise.
Page 49 - Till then alone let zealous praise ascend, And hymns of holy wonder, to that POWER, Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds As on our smiling eyes his servant sun. Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways, Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved. The quivering nations sport ; till, tempest wing'd, Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day.

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