The Edinburgh Literary Journal: Or, Weekly Register of Criticism and Belles-lettres, Volume 2

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Constable and Company, 1829

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Page 123 - Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image.
Page 123 - The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, - the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods - rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man.
Page 123 - Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone.
Page 123 - To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language ; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
Page 123 - To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thy eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world, — with kings, The powerful of the earth, — the wise, the good, [91 Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre.
Page 124 - Nor would its brightness shine for me, Nor its wild music flow. But if, around my place of sleep, The friends I love should come to weep, They might not haste to go. Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom, Should keep them lingering by my tomb. These to their softened hearts should bear The thought of what has been, And speak of one who cannot share The gladness of the scene ; Whose part in all the pomp that fills The circuit of the summer hills, Is — that his grave is green ! And deeply would...
Page 14 - I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair, And I might have gone near to love thee ; Had I not found the slightest prayer That lips could speak had power to move thee : But I can let thee now alone, As worthy to be loved by none.
Page 189 - With earnest feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away; For never saw I mien or face In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence.
Page 180 - ... worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass.
Page 123 - So live, that when thy summons comes, to join The innumerable caravan, that moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

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