Poetry, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge

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Page 432 - I see before me the gladiator lie : He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low ; And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now The arena swims around him ; he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
Page 233 - And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear-drops as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, - alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe And burning with high hope shall moulder cold and low.
Page 273 - The sky is changed! - and such a change! Oh night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
Page 261 - What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
Page 460 - Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves
Page 64 - How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.
Page 459 - The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Page 392 - Ocean hath his chart, the Stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; But Rome is as the desert — where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap Our hands, and cry 'Eureka!
Page 458 - Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin — his control Stops with the shore ; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed...
Page 270 - Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven, If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are A beauty, and a mystery, and create G In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

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