Representative Sonnets by American Poets: With an Essay on the Sonnet, Its Nature and History, Including Many Notable Sonnets of Other Literatures, Also Biographical Notes, Indexes, Etc

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1890 - Sonnets - 361 pages

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Page 56 - When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present 5 My true account, lest he returning chide; "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
Page 26 - Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, What exultations trampling on despair, What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, Uprose this poem of the earth and air, This mediaeval miracle of song!
Page 219 - Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Page 52 - Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
Page 71 - Homer ruled as his demesne : Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: — Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific — and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Page 64 - Mysterious Night ! when our first Parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue ? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came ; And lo, Creation widened in man's view.
Page 46 - Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance, Guided so well that I obtained the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes, And of some sent from that sweet enemy, — France...
Page 58 - CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed, And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued, While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued. And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureate wreath...
Page 219 - Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!
Page 84 - So, gladly, from the songs of modern speech Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers, And, through the music of the languid hours, They hear, like ocean on a western beach, The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.

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