Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Thomas Moore. 1779-1852. (History, p. 225.) 196. From 'LALLA ROOKH.' "The Gift that is most dear to Heaven." Cheer'd by this hope she bends her thither ;- From his hot steed, and on the brink Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fire! 1. Haggard: this word is said to come from Ger. hager, lean; but the sb. haggard, a worthless, untrainable hawk, is taken from hawk itself with the termination and suffixed, as in buzzard. In which the Peri's eye could read Yet tranquil now that man of crime Met that unclouded, joyous gaze, But hark! the vesper call to prayer, From Syria's thousand minarets! Kneels, with his forehead to the south, From purity's own cherub mouth, Like a stray babe of Paradise, Just lighted on that flowery plain, And seeking for its home again! Oh, 'twas a sight-that Heav'n-that Child A scene, which might have well beguil'd Ev'n haughty EBLIS 2 of a sigh For glories lost and peace gone by! 2. Eblis, the prince of the evil spirits, the Mahometan Satan. SPECS. ENG. LIT. U And how felt he, the wretched Man O'er many a year of guilt and strife, Nor brought him back one branch of grace! And hope and feeling, which had slept Blest tears of soul-felt penitence! In whose benign, redeeming flow Is felt the first, the only sense Of guiltless joy that guilt can know, [moon "There's a drop," said the Peri, "that down from the Falls through the withering airs of June Upon Egypt's land,3 of so healing a power, The precious tears of repentance fall? One heavenly drop hath dispell'd them all!" And hymns of joy proclaim through Heaven 3. "The Nucta, or Miraculous Drop, which falls in Egypt precisely on St. John's day, in June, and is supposed to have the effect of stopping the plague." AUTHOR'S NOTE. 197. THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE. The turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My choir shall be the moonlight waves, I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown, Thy Heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look, I'll read thy anger in the rack' Of sunny brightness breaking through! There's nothing bright, above, below, There's nothing dark, below, above, 1. Rack: see note 18, extract 51. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1792-1822. (History, p. 228.) 198. To A SKYLARK. Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied 2 joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 1. Bird: there is reason to think that this word was once limited to the young of the feathered tribe, and so may be referred to bear. Its O. E. and M. E. forms bridd, brid, bring it very near to brood; and Shakespeare uses the phrase "cuckoo's bird" for the young of the cuckoo. The more general term was foul, O. E. fugel, Ger. vogel. 2. Unbodied: Mr. Craik thought it probable that the poet originally wrote embodied, and that the present reading is due to a misprint. |