Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 634 pages of information about Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6.

Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 634 pages of information about Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6.

[The seventh sings to the Irish harp.]

Evolving day from night for evermore! 
And as yon robe of glorious nightly fire
Pales when the morning beams to noon aspire,
Thus He who rules with law eternal,
Creating order fair diurnal,
Casts down the proud and doth exalt the poor.

[The eighth plays with a viol and bow.]

Casts down the proud and doth exalt the poor! 
And with an equal hand maintains
The boundless worlds which He sustains,
And scatters all our finite sense
At thought of His omnipotence,
Clouded awhile, to be revealed once more.

[The ninth plays upon the rebeck.]

Clouded awhile, to be revealed once more! 
Thus neither doubt nor fear avails;
O’er all the incomparable End prevails,
O’er fair champaign and mountain,
O’er river-brink and fountain,
And o’er the shocks of seas and perils of the shore.

Translation of Isa Blagden.

OF IMMENSITY

From Frith’s ‘Life of Giordano Bruno’

     ’Tis thou, O Spirit, dost within my soul
       This weakly thought with thine own life amend;
       Rejoicing, dost thy rapid pinions lend
     Me, and dost wing me to that lofty goal
     Where secret portals ope and fetters break,
       And thou dost grant me, by thy grace complete,
     Fortune to spurn, and death; O high retreat,
       Which few attain, and fewer yet forsake! 
     Girdled with gates of brass in every part,
       Prisoned and bound in vain, ’tis mine to rise
       Through sparkling fields of air to pierce the skies,
     Sped and accoutred by no doubting heart,
     Till, raised on clouds of contemplation vast,
     Light, leader, law, Creator, I attain at last.

     LIFE WELL LOST

     Winged by desire and thee, O dear delight! 
       As still the vast and succoring air I tread,
       So, mounting still, on swifter pinions sped,
     I scorn the world, and heaven receives my flight. 
     And if the end of Ikaros be nigh,
       I will submit, for I shall know no pain: 
       And falling dead to earth, shall rise again;
     What lowly life with such high death can vie? 
     Then speaks my heart from out the upper air,
     “Whither dost lead me? sorrow and despair
     Attend the rash.” and thus I make reply:—­
       “Fear thou no fall, nor lofty ruin sent;
       Safely divide the clouds, and die content,
     When such proud death is dealt thee from on high.”

     PARNASSUS WITHIN

     O heart, ’tis you my chief Parnassus are,
       Where for my safety I must ever climb. 
       My winged thoughts are Muses, who from far
       Bring gifts of beauty to the court of Time;
     And Helicon, that fair unwasted rill,
       Springs newly in my tears upon the earth,
     And by those streams

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Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.