"Poetry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... curb her wings, and descend from poetry to prose, in order to narrate the particular adventures of our three ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... illustrations. The hand or muscle disused withers in power. The fishes of the Mammoth Cave, having no use for their eyes, lose them. Mr. Darwin in an impressive passage of his biography testifies that he began life with a taste for poetry and music, but that by disuse this aesthetic taste grew atrophied so that at last he did not care to read a poem or to hear a musical note. So it is, says Jesus, with spiritual insight and power. Sometimes we ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... no one can write real poetry until he has known the sting of unhappiness; and sure it is that beauty ever lacks that moss-rose finish that tender melancholy throws about it, until it has known what sorrow is. Komel had been called to mourn, and melancholy had thrown about her a gentle glow of plaintiveness, ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... is reached in the wondrous sanctuary that St. Louis built for the crown of thorns, "the most precious piece of Gothic," says Ruskin, "in Northern Europe." Michelet saw a whole world of religion and poetry—tears of piety, mystic ecstasy, the mysteries of divine love—expressed in the marvellous little church, in the fragile and precious paintings of its windows.[59] The work was completed in three years, and has ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Bern saw that if they could win this talented young scholar, they would secure both gain and honor. His extreme youth, his natural ability as a speaker and writer, and his genius for music and poetry, would be more effective than all their pomp and display, in attracting the people to their services and increasing the revenues of their order. By deceit and flattery they endeavored to induce Zwingle ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... who died in 1882, author of the “Origin of the Species”) who first discovered Anna Seward as a poetess. Happening to peruse some verses apparently written by her, he took an opportunity of calling at the Palace when Anna Seward was alone, and satisfied himself that she could write good poetry unaided, and that her literary abilities ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... I have learned no poetry. I had poetry enough of my own without learning it, and so has everybody else. I once knew a fellow who wrote very good poetry; but few of us understood it. That man lost his labour. It is nature that makes ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... and emptied its contents on to her dressing-table. Two or three crushed bills, a scrap or so of poetry presented by Griffith upon various tender occasions, and a discouragingly small banknote, the sole remains of her last quarter's salary The supply was not equal to the demand, it was evident. But she was by no means overpowered. She was dashed, but not despairing. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... into the forest on the shore of the lake. I lay in my favorite place under a large oak, in the dark foliage of which the birds were singing, while the waves of the lake at my feet were a sweet accompaniment. I was reading the lately published poetry of my favorite bard, Goethe, and had just finished 'The Wandering Fool.' This poem struck my heart as lightning. I dropped the book, looked up to the clouds and shouted to them: 'What are you but wandering fools! Oh, take me with you!' But the clouds did not reply to me; they passed ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... a kind and happy way with her which it was a pleasure to see. Her son Pierre was wont to say that she knew the value of money, but this did not hinder her from enjoying the delights of dreaming. She was fond of reading, of novels and poetry, not for their value as works of art, but for the sake of the tender melancholy mood they would induce in her. A line of poetry, often but a poor one, often a bad one, would touch the little chord, as she expressed it, and give her the sense of some mysterious desire almost realized. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... in his English dress, which has been one of the curious literary phenomena of recent years. The melody of FitzGerald's verse is so exquisite, the thoughts he rearranges and strings together are so profound, and the general atmosphere of poetry in which he steeps his version is so pure, that no surprise need be expressed at the universal favour which the poem has ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... all the bearing of her person were the result of a nature guided by grace. Her look was tender, the accents of her voice were enchanting. Her genius was great, substantial, and extensive, and capable of the grandest conceptions. She wrote both good prose and pleasing poetry; and Mary Mancini, who shone in a courtly letter, was equally capable of producing a political or state dispatch. She would not have been unworthy of the throne if among us great merit had been entitled to ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... admire the frequent allusions in the Indian, Persian, and Arabic poets, to the magical effects of terrestrial refraction. It was scarcely known to the Greeks and Romans. Proud of the riches of their soil, and the mild temperature of the air, they would have felt no envy of this poetry of the desert. It had its birth in Asia; and the oriental poets found its source in the nature of the country they inhabited. They were inspired with the aspect of those vast solitudes, interposed like arms of the sea or gulfs, between lands which nature had ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the Church simply declares that it is "useful and salutary" to ask their prayers. There are expressions addressed to the Saints in some popular books of devotion which, to critical readers, may seem extravagant. But they are only the warm language of affection and poetry, to be regulated by our standard of faith; and notice that all the prayers of the Church end with the formula: "Through our Lord Jesus Christ," sufficiently indicating her belief that Christ is the Mediator of salvation. A heart tenderly ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... resident incumbent. How agreeable to picture to one's self, as has been done by poets and romance writers, from Chaucer down to Goldsmith, a man devoted to his ministerial office, with not a wish or a thought ranging beyond the circuit of its cares! Nor is it in poetry and fiction only that such characters are found; they are scattered, it is hoped not sparingly, over real life, especially in sequestered and rural districts, where there is but small influx of new inhabitants, and little change ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the monument, and the ornaments on it cost fur more than he expected. There wuz a wreath a-runnin' round it clear from the bottom to the top, and verses a kinder runnin' up it at the same time. And it cost fearful. Poetry a-runnin' up, they say, costs fur more than ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... and had seen his activity in the suppression of piracy in the Channel rewarded by an unjust imprisonment. He was now in the first vigour of manhood, with a mind exquisitely cultivated and familiar with the poetry and learning of his day, a nature singularly lofty and devout, a fearless and vehement temper. There was a hot impulsive element in his nature which showed itself in youth in his drawing sword on ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... he rarely attempts to ethicize the Bible story. For the most part he paraphrases it, cuts out its poetry, and reduces it to a prosaic chronicle of facts. The exordium in fact has little relation to the book, and looks as if it were borrowed without discrimination. Josephus next, indeed, professes that he will accurately set out in chronological order the incidents in the Jewish annals, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... composed in French for the guidance of stewards of manors, and translated, it is said by Grosseteste, into English for the benefit of a wider public. Grosseteste is also said to have drawn up in French a handbook of rules for the management of a great estate, and he certainly wrote French poetry. The legal literature, written in Latin or French, and illustrated by such names as Bracton, Britton, and "Fleta," shows that there was growing up a school of earnest students of English law who, though anxious, like Bracton, to bring their ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... ways cannot be determined beforehand. By the study of painting and etching and drawing merely, we could not foresee that there is also possible an art like sculpture, and by studying epic and lyric poetry we could not construct beforehand the forms of the drama. The genius of mankind had to discover ever new forms in which the interest in reality is conserved and yet the things and events are so completely changed that ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... the King, "O my lord, deign excuse me, for greed impelled me to this and fate was thereby fulfilled; and, were there no offending, there would be no forgiving." And he went on to excuse himself for the past and pray to him for pardon and indulgence till he recited amongst other things this poetry, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... arts of the first order will be those in which the Imaginative part of the intellect and the Sensitive part of the soul are joined: as poetry, architecture, and painting; these forming a kind of cross, in their part of the scheme of the human being, with those of the second order, which wed the Intelligent part of the intellect and Resolute part of the soul. But the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... faded yellow silk cushions softened the formal angularity of the wide cane-seated couch and low, square chairs. There was a deep crystal bowl of midsummer flowering roses on the table, laden with books, by which Claire often sat long hours reading poetry and volumes written by modern poets and authors of whom her husband had only vaguely heard and of ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... fire-jewels above him, thought of this marvel-glory of Love,—this celestial visitant who, on noiseless pinions, comes flying divinely into the poorest homes, transfiguring common life with ethereal radiance, making toil easy, giving beauty to the plainest faces and poetry to the dullest brains. Love! its tremulous hand- clasp,—its rapturous kiss,—the speechless eloquence it gives to gentle eyes!—the grace it bestows on even the smallest gift from lover to beloved, were such gift but a handful ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... in order that boys and girls, already perhaps familiar with the great classics of the English speech, may also know something of the newer poetry of their own day. Most of the writers are living, and the rest are still vivid memories among us, while one of the youngest, almost as these words are written, has gone singing to lay down his life for his ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... a little hunting, I suppose, unless you have a dozen children. And now you and Adelaide must settle when it's to be. I hate things to be delayed. People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... write with as perfect fluency and fluency as could her brothers. Then they were placed under the most learned of the Philosophers and the Olema, who taught them the interpretation of the Koran and the sayings of the Apostle; the science of geometry as well as poetry and history, and even the abstruse sciences and the mystic doctrines of the Enlightened; and their teachers were astonished to find how soon and how far all three made progress in their studies ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... he would then proceed to copy "All that I know of a certain star," which, however it "dartles red and blue," he knew nothing of save that it had "opened its soul" to him. Arthur Rogers, delivering the Bohlen lectures for 1909, compared Browning with Isaiah, in his lecture on "Poetry and Prophecy," and he instanced this "star" which "opened its soul" to the poet, as attesting that Browning, like Isaiah, could do no more ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... treasure but of their husbands, whom they carried in their arms or on their backs. Thus was a massacre averted, and thus did the name of "Woman's Faithfulness" attach itself to the castle in the shadow of which Kerner spent his days. But at the time of which we write neither the castle nor poetry held first place in his thoughts; instead, he was absorbed in the practice of his profession. And so, with the ardor of the enthusiast and the sympathy of the true physician, he welcomed to Weinsberg the sufferer of whom he had ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... were, of course, on controversial and doctrinal subjects; and these she was able to understand and to appreciate: but among these graver and more abstruse treatises, were some of a more attractive nature—some volumes of foreign travel, and ancient legends, and heart-stirring poetry, in which the soul of Edith reveled, as in a garden of ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... of the brave men of the West were praised in poetry and song. Some stanzas were published in the Atlantic Monthly in Boston, which are so beautiful that I think you will thank me ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... things, mention the soup we had last Thursday. No piece of poetry would be complete ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... face uncomfortably. Perhaps they fear an undeserved imputation of drunkenness, remembering their own cynical saying: "A bottle-nosed man may be a tee-totaller, but no one will believe it." To judge from their histories and their poetry, the Chinese seem once upon a time to have been a fairly tipsy nation: now-a-days, the truth lies the other way. An official who died A.D. 639, and was the originator of epitaphs in China, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... invariably held in check by his vigorous common-sense, there was in Mr. Lincoln's nature a strong vein of poetry and mysticism. That morning he told his cabinet a strange story of a dream that he had had the night before—a dream which he said came to him before great events. He had dreamed it before the battles of Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... lost something," said Sheridan. "I expect he's lost a whole lot o' foolishness besides his God-forsaken notions about writin' poetry and—" ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... householder was a director of the co-operative society and another announcing that he was an expert in the application of the moxa.[39] Every house I went into had a collection of charms. One charm, a verse of poetry hung upside-down, as is the custom, was against ants. Another was understood to ensure the safe return ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... Newcome Orphan Children's Home, and 2, for the benefit of the Newcome Soup Association, without distinction of denomination. Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., proposes to give two lectures, on Friday the 23rd, and Friday the 30th, instant. No. 1, The Poetry of Childhood: Doctor Watts, Mrs. Barbauld, Jane Taylor, No. 2, The Poetry of Womanhood, and the Affections: Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L. Threepence will be charged at the doors, which will go to the use of the above two admirable Societies.' Potts wants me to go down and hear him. He has an eye to business. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... romance of coffee, and its influence on the discourse, poetry, history, drama, philosophic writing, and fiction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and on the writers ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... mind was decidedly literary. He read the Latin language fairly well but had never read more than the Greek testament and Septuagint. He was well read, however, in the English classics and his discourses show taste for the beauties of poetry and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... left of a German to send home after he got through with him," commented Ned Slade, as the sergeant handed Jerry back the gun. "He surely has some poetry of motion—Sergeant ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... Carlyle. Unlike his only rival, he had learnt his art before he began to practise it. Of the early work of the greater artist a good half is that of a man in the throes of education: the ideas, the thoughts, the passion, the poetry, the humour, are of the best, but the expression is self-conscious, strained, ignorant. Thackeray had no such blemish. He wrote dispassionately, and he was a born writer. In him there is no hesitation, no fumbling, no uncertainty. The style of Barry Lyndon is better and ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... written therefore with absolute truth, and without any regard whatever for what the world calls decency. Decency and voluptuousness in its fullest acceptance, cannot exist together, one would kill the other; the poetry of copulation I have only experienced with a few women, which however neither prevented them, nor me from ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... was born in Paris in 1817, and died there in 1878. He was the son of a well-known miniature painter, and passed his youth in the country, where he imbibed the love for simple nature which he afterwards rendered with less of fervor than Rousseau, with less poetry than either Corot or Dupre; but, in his way, with as much or more of truth. His task was easier. In the progress which landscape painting had made, there were hosts of younger painters, each adding a particle of truth, each ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... the bell, and tells him what a wonderful thing it is; tells him also that if he will come with him to Isabella he shall have the bell for a present. Poetry and public policy struggle together in Caonabo's heart, but poetry wins; the great powerful savage, urged thereto by his childish lion-heart, will come to Isabella if they will give him the bell. He sets forth, accompanied by a native retinue, and by Ojeda and his ten horsemen. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... gladder if their strivings bore more closely upon the daily business of living, of self-expression without friction and without futile desires. See this man who regularly studies every evening of his life! He has genuinely understood the nature of poetry, and his taste is admirable. He recites verse with true feeling, and may be said to be highly cultivated. Poetry is a continual source of pleasure to him. True! But why is he always complaining about not receiving his deserts in the office? Why is he ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... But this too is a proof how nearly the sublime and ridiculous are associated,—"how thin partitions do their bounds divide;" for this fine poetry is associated, in most reader's minds, with Thomson's own odd indulgence in the "dead oblivion." He was a late riser, sleeping often till noon; and when once reproached for his sluggishness, observed, that "he felt so comfortable he really saw no motive for rising." As if, according to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... name's Nixcomeraus because he's from the Dutchman's house. If you listen good, you'll see that's poetry— ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... walked daily together, and had spent nights in joint study of philosophy and poetry. Hervey "had all the light of youth, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... road. Blessings on the man who invented them! It was done when land was cheap, and public roads were few; before four wheels were first geared together for business or pleasure. They were the doing of another age; this would not have produced them. They run through all the prose, poetry, and romance of the rural life of England, permeating the history of green hedges, thatched cottages, morning songs of the lark, moonlight walks, meetings at the stile, harvest homes of long ago, and many a romantic narrative of human experience widely read in both hemispheres. They will ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... with a child as only a woman can. His hymns soar to heaven and his coarse jests trail in the mire. He was touched with profound melancholy and yet he had a wholesome, ready laugh. His words are now brutal invectives and again blossom with the most exquisite flowers of the soul—poetry, music, idyllic humor, tenderness. He was subtle and simple; superstitious and wise; limited in his cultural sympathies, but very great ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... of opinion, Socrates, he said, that skill in poetry is the principal part of education; and this I conceive to be the power of knowing what compositions of the poets are correct, and what are not, and how they are to be distinguished, and of explaining when asked ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... a stonemason Runs away Re-apprenticed to a mason at Langholm Building operations in the district Miss Pasley lends books to young Telford Attempt to write poetry Becomes village letter-writer Works as a journeyman mason Employed on Langholm Bridge Manse of Westerkirk Poem of 'Eskdale' Hews headstones and doorheads Works as a mason at Edinburgh Study of architecture Revisits Eskdale His ride ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... Graham. "The sight of all that work was too much for him. He'll be lying on his back now by the river thinking poetry. This country's just thick with reposeful Britishers nobody at home has any use for, and their kind friends ship off onto us. In a way I'm sorry. He lit out hungry, and he didn't look ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... arrive at the "view point," and there, spread around you in such a panorama as England only can show, and show against the world for its extreme richness. On the left is Cooper's Hill, which Denham, that high-priest of "Local poetry," long ago made famous; in the bend just where it meets the plain, you see the towers of Windsor Castle; there is Harrow Hill, the sun shining brightly on its tall church; a deep pall hovers over ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... beauty flowed in, attracted by the fame of her splendor. From here they scattered, eager for knowledge, along the coasts of Africa, through the schools of Tunis, Cairo, Bagdad, Cufa, and even to India and China, in order to gather inspiration and records; and the poetry sung on the slopes of the Sierra Morena flew from lyre to lyre, as far as the valleys of the Caucasus, to excite the ardor for pilgrimages. The beautiful, powerful, and wise Cordova, crowned with three thousand villages, proudly raised her white minarets in the midst of orange groves, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the public, through Mr. Putnam, a new edition of the translation made by himself and some literary friends, of Goethe's "Autobiography, or Truth and Poetry from My Life." In his new preface Mr. Godwin exposes one of the most scandalous pieces of literary imposition that we have ever read of. This translation, with a few verbal alterations which mar its beauty and lessen its fidelity, has been reprinted in "Bohn's Standard Library," in London, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... His poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence. He has sometimes a striking line, or a shining paragraph; but, in the whole, he is warm rather than fervid, and shows more dexterity than strength. He was, however, one ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... effects which this holy reciprocated love produced in a St. Francis, in a St. Theresa, and in many others. Neither is it surprising that the saints who are full of the thoughts of God, should have had recourse to poetry to express the feelings of their hearts, since the sacred writers, inspired by the Spirit of God, have composed many of the sacred books in poetry; this also is practised by the universal ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... of poetry on the wall of a smashed-up chateau, and I have copied it exactly as I found it. The writing was on a darkened wall, and while I copied it my guide held a torchlight up to it. The place passes as "Dead Cow Farm" on all ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... of James Russell Lowell last year showed that he has become more esteemed as a critic and essayist than as a poet. Lowell himself felt that his true calling was in critical work rather than in poetry, and he wrote very little verse in the latter part of his life. He was somewhat chagrined that the poetic flame of his youth did not continue to glow, but he resigned himself to his fate; nevertheless, it should ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... poetical students. Southey eagerly turned to it for materials for his Curse of Kehama, in the notes to which he makes long quotations from "the excellent and learned Baptist missionaries of Serampore." Dean Milman, when professor of poetry in Oxford, drew from the same storehouse many of the notes with which he enriched his verse translations from both epics. A. W. von Schlegel, the death of whose eldest brother at Madras early led him to Oriental studies, published two ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... exquisites, or literary dandies. Their names—Sir John Cheke, Roger Ascham, Nicholas Udall, Thomas Wilson, Walter Haddon, belong rather to the universities and to the coteries of learning, than to the court. To the nobility, from whose essays and belles lettres Elizabethan poetry was to develop, they stood in the relation of tutors rather than of companions, suspecting the extravagances of their pupils rather than sympathising with their ideals. They were a band of serious and dignified scholars, men preoccupied ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... innocence of nature; then the patriarchal era with its simple, uniform manners along with its untamed passion; and then again the most active intercourse of nations, the most savage wars, the hierarchical state and the elective and hereditary monarchy. It gives us lofty poetry in the Psalms, the grandest didactic poem in the Book of Job, and a collection of proverbs, the fruit of the ripest experience and knowledge of life. It makes us acquainted with idolatry in its most ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... from Halifax. This is the more remarkable as the two seem to have been almost the only persons who are mentioned as talking whiggery to him. To this list, however, may be added Lady Betty Germain, well known to the readers of Swift's poetry, who joined Mrs. Barton in inflicting the vexation, and at whose house the conversation took place. It thus appears that Mrs. Barton was received in a manner which shows that she was regarded as a respectable woman. The suppression on the part of Swift may indicate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... days of respite from labor. He spent a liberal share of his time at Squire Lee's, where he was almost as much at home as in his mother's house. Annie read Moore's Poems to him, till he began to have quite a taste for poetry himself. ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... is the most strikingly rational and articulate. Its material is plain thought, plain words. We employ in it the apparatus of conscious life. Poetry was therefore concerned in early times entirely with things of the spirit. It dealt with persons, and with them alone. It celebrated epic actions, recorded sagacious judgments, or uttered in lyric song emotions primarily felt by an individual, yet interpreting the common ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... American origin flourished in New England nearly alone. It consisted of sermons, social and political tracts, poetry, history, and memoirs. The clergy were the chief but not the sole authors. Of readers, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston had many. Much reading matter came from England. Charleston enjoyed a public library from 1700. About 1750 there were several ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... daily fresh to the minds of the people through great monuments and memorials. Scarcely a hamlet is so small that it does not possess its Bismarck Denkmal, often situated upon some commanding hill, telling to each generation, in the sublime poetry of form, the greatness of the man who made German unity a reality ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... papers eight manuscript volumes of about one hundred and fifty pages each, filled with selections, copied in his own handwriting, and culled from the writings of many of the most gifted authors, both in poetry ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... manners, the habits and customs of the aboriginal race by whom the Highlands of Scotland were inhabited, had always appeared to me peculiarly adapted to poetry. The change in their manners, too, had taken place almost within my own time, or at least I had learned many particulars concerning the ancient state of the Highlands from the old men of the last generation. I had always thought the old Scottish Gael highly adapted for poetical composition. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... nothing less than by a catastrophe that I should have been so betrayed in the volumes of Mr. Cawein's verse which reached me last before the volume of his collected poems.... I had read his poetry and loved it from the beginning, and in each successive expression of it, I had delighted in its expanding and maturing beauty. I believe I had not failed to own its compass, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... true gentleman is all over the world, were disgusted, and, to punish his impertinence, proposed that a weekly paper should be written by the cabin passengers, in which the occurrences of each day should be noted and commented upon, and that poetry, tales, and essays, should ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... and finer spirit of all knowledge,' according to Wordsworth, the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science'—that poetry irrespective of rhyme and metrical arrangement which is as immortal as the heart of man, is distinctive in Mr. Allen's work from the first written page. Like Minerva issuing full-formed from the head of Jove, Mr. Allen issues from his long years of silence and seclusion a ...
— James Lane Allen: A Sketch of his Life and Work • Macmillan Company
... that in this phrase we have the old, old metaphor of life as a march, but so modified as to lose all its melancholy and weariness and to become an elevating hope. The idea which runs through all poetry, of life as a journey, suggests effort, monotonous change, a uniform law of variety and transiency, struggle and weariness, but the Christian thought of life, while preserving the idea of change, modifies it into the blessed thought of progress. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... development and arrangement from and around a common centre. Hence it is that Chronology and Geography are so necessary for him, when he reads History, which is otherwise little better than a story-book. Hence, too, Metrical Composition, when he reads Poetry; in order to stimulate his powers into action in every practicable way, and to prevent a merely passive reception of images and ideas which in that case are likely to pass out of the mind as soon as they have entered it. Let him once gain this habit of method, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... implication of Scottish descent, and was known at home and in various out-of-the-way parts of the world as Nolim or Nummy. He even carried about a small volume of Burns in his pocket; not from any love of poetry, but to demonstrate, when required, that Scotsmen have their own ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Michael's Crag below it. As the engineer drew near he saw the stranger was not alone. Under shelter of the rocks a girl lay stretched at length on a loose camel's-hair rug; her head was hatless; in her hand she held, half open, a volume of poetry. She looked up as Eustace passed, and he noted at a glance that she was dark and pretty. The Cornish type once more; bright black eyes, glossy brown hair, a rich complexion, a soft and ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... the young Western-educated Hindu was apt to be, at least intellectually, plus royaliste que le roi. he plucked with both hands at the fruits of the tree of Western knowledge. Some were enthusiastic students of English literature, and especially of English poetry. They had their Wordsworth and their Browning Societies. Others steeped themselves in English history and loved to draw their political inspiration from Milton and Burke and John Stuart Mill. Others, again, were the humble disciples of Kant and Schlegel, of Herbert Spencer and Darwin. But whatever ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... to be added for those detached persons who see no particular objection to England ceasing to be English, who do not care about the national names of the West, which have been the greatest words in the poetry of the world. So far as we know there is only one ideal they do care about, and they will not get it. Whatever else this betrayal means it does not mean peace. The Poles have raised revolution after revolution, when three colossal Empires ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... photograph the seens on, or they won't be took. Some hearts and souls are blank plates and will always remain so. Arvilly seemed lost in thought as they talked about the poet (she hain't so well versed in poetry as she is in the license laws and the disabilities of wimmen), and when she hearn Robert Strong say, "Camoens will ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... the Fauns and rustic Bards compos'd, When none the rocks of poetry had cross'd, Nor wish'd to form his style by rules of art, Before this vent'rous ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... refer to the beauty, the tenderness, and the purity of their domestic relations. The whole story of the Odyssey is founded on the faithful wedded love of Odysseus and Penelope, and the contrasted example of Agamemnon and his demon wife is repeatedly held up to scorn and abhorrence. The world's poetry affords no nobler scene than the parting of Hector and Andromache in the Iliad, nor has the ideal of perfect marriage ever found grander expression than in the words addressed by Odysseus to Nausicaae: "There is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one mind and heart ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... Exposition's "White City"; it was an architectural triumph and glory which we could not have except on condition that it should vanish with the swiftness of an aurora. Even so, there would have been little poetry in its evanescence if, through bad workmanship or any obvious folly, it had failed to fulfil the transient purpose for which it was erected. The only poetic evanescence is the evanescence that is inevitable. An unnecessary evanescence in ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... the ideally real Hester Stebbins, the spark of fire which is she. The storms have not broken over her head. She will laugh and make poetry of her laughter. If before she met you she wept, that, too, will help the smiling. There is laughter which is the echo of a Miserere sobbed by the ages. Men chuckle in the irony of pain, and they smile cold, lessoned smiles in resignation; ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... absented himself for full three months from his paternal roof, and revelled in abandoned profligacy; whilst the facts with which the poet has connected it, fix the outbreaking of the Prince to a time when the real Henry was not twelve years and a half old. Shakspeare's poetry is not inconsistent with itself, but ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... I think I do. A mind without religious sentiment is like a star without atmosphere, brighter than other stars but not so soft to see. Religion, poetry, music, imagination, and even some of the more exalted forms of passion, flourish in the same soil, and are, I sometimes think, different manifestations of the same thing. Do you know it is ridiculous to hear you talk ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... with great vividness, brevity, and force what had happened in the past, what actually existed, or what the future promised. But his fancy never ran away with him or carried him captive into the regions of poetry. Imagination of this sort is readily curbed and controlled, and, if less brilliant, is safer than that defined by Shakespeare. For this reason, Mr. Webster rarely indulged in long, descriptive passages, and, while ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Oxford," he said, "and I've all the tastes of a gentleman. Art and poetry are my specialties—when my professional duties allow ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... guessed Polly. "He's the greatest boy for writing poetry. He wrote his composition, one week, ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... his opinions on matters of criticism and scholarship were those of the Odd school, and that he decried all the forms of innovation in letters which had begun to show themselves in his day, and which he regarded as affectations. His constant advice to young people was if you want to read poetry, read Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, and Pope; throw all the rest in the fire. And with the addition of but one or two names which have appeared since his time, such counsel is ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... answered Roderick. 'Time and place are made for us, and not we for time and place. Is not good poetry as good at one place as at another? Or would you prefer dancing? there is scarcity of men; and with the help of nothing more than a few hours' jumping and a pair of tired legs, you may lay strong siege to the hearts of as many grateful ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... standard of his greatness in the crowd of his contemporaries: this hath always been reserved for the secondary." The wealth contained in his essays has only begun to be put in general circulation, and the harvest of his poetry is still more remote; while the sincere humility of the man himself, who was the best incarnate example of many of his ideals, still puzzles those critics who believe every one must needs be inferior to ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... that, Vane? There's quoting poetry. Waste their sweetness on the desert air, I suppose you ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... piece of exquisite hand-wrought lace. She stood before them, a vision from the old world, full of innate ladyhood, simple as a peasant, at once appealing and dominating, impulsive, yet shy. Her beautiful enunciation, her inverted and quaintly turned English, alive with poetry, was typical of her whole personality, a sweet and strange mixture of the high-bred aristocrat and the simple directness and strength of ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... twenty years ago in Italy, and continued fitfully, as I found the mood and time for them, long after their original circumstance had become a pleasant memory. If any one were to say that it did not fully represent the Italian poetry of the period which it covers chronologically, I should applaud his discernment; and perhaps I should not contend that it did much more than indicate the general character of that poetry. At the same time, I think that it does not ignore any principal name among the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... in the standard books of mythology and poetry, and have been tested and found to be very helpful in the first and third grades. A full list of myths, history stories and fairy tales for the children in the different grades can be found in Emily J. Rice's Course ...
— Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children • Flora J. Cooke
... power to conceive ideas, should NOT be combined with a dialectic skill in expressing them. Degerando, an admirable French writer, in one of his Treatises, has some profound observations on this subject; and does not hesitate to define poetry itself as ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... of Christ and in His Resurrection, is hard to understand. He certainly was a good man, and knew Christ and loved Him. His writings prove that; and in 410 A.D., though reluctantly, he became Bishop of Ptolemais. Very little of his poetry has come down to us, but that little is of the highest ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... may be something in Mr. Ferrier's idea after all. I believe that sweet, simple stories, or poetry, or pictures, would please the men. See how pleased that Great Grimsby man was with the girl's picture-book that you gave him. I'm almost converted. Besides, now I remember it, I heard a gentleman who had been public orator at Cambridge make a crowd of East-End people cry by reading 'Enoch Arden'—of ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... subject of this essay. It is rugged and massive; but so is his mind. It were impossible to imagine the author of "Sartor Resartus" and "The French Revolution" expressing himself in the carefully rounded periods of Macaulay, whose prose is half poetry, and whose poetry is all prose. Carlyle seems to care precious little what kind of vehicle he uses for the conveyance of ideas so long as it does not break down. All his labor "smells of the lamp"; but "the midnight oil"—of which our modern "ready writers" ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... spirit, she, like Sappho, the poetess of Lesbia, sought to arouse the Greek wives to the expression of their individual selves. One writer says of her efforts: "This woman determined to do her utmost to elevate her sex. The one method of culture open to women at that time was poetry. There was no other form of literature, and accordingly she systematically trained her pupils to be poets, and to weave into the verse the noblest maxims of the intellect and the deepest emotions of the ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... that it is true, and if you will ask him why he so frequently visits the valley, he certainly will not deny that he goes there for the purpose of meeting handsome Nanna, the daughter of old Mr. Lonner. He reads poetry to her, and under the pretence of teaching her the guitar, he finds an opportunity of pressing her pretty little ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... clerk, having charge of the distribution of the office supplies for the whole company. Although the lack of early training had hindered the orderly development of a naturally fine mind, it had not prevented him from doing a great deal of reading or from forming decidedly literary tastes. Poetry was his passion. He could repeat whole pages of the great English poets; and if his pronunciation was sometimes faulty, his eye, his voice, his gestures, would respond to the changing sentiment with a precision that revealed a poetic soul, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Quebec but he gladly gave the encouragement of his presence and counsel to the teachers in primary and secondary schools throughout Canada at their annual gatherings; and one of his favourite pleas on these occasions was for the rightful place of English Literature—and especially Poetry—in the school curriculum. He magnified the office of the teacher and deplored the apathy of the public towards those entrusted with the training of the future manhood and womanhood of the nation. 'No expenditure,' he cried, 'is ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... Apollo, the Greek sun god, hence in poetry the sun. 7. delectable giving pleasure. 13. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... had nothing romantic about him, not even poverty. He was unpoetically rich—he even trafficked in money. The rector was a very young man; Burrell was thirty-eight years old. The rector wrote poetry, and understood Browning, and recited from Arnold and Morris. Burrell's tastes were for social science and statistics. He was thoughtful, intelligent, well-bred, and reticent; small in figure, with a large ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... LIOULT DE (1769-1833), French poet, was born at Vire (Calvados) on the 4th of November 1769. He early showed a vocation for poetry, but the outbreak of the Revolution temporarily diverted his energy. Emigrating in 1791, he fought two campaigns in the army of Conde, and eventually found his way to Hamburg, where he met Antoine de Rivarol, of whose brilliant conversation he has left an account. He also visited Mme de Stael in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... is no mere chance that the earliest piece of poetry, the oldest three distiches of the Old Testament, the Song of Lamech, is a song of triumph over the invention of the ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... her countenance, and gentleness of her manners, soon had their effect; and Anne was well repaid the first trouble of exertion. He was evidently a young man of considerable taste in reading, though principally in poetry; and besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening's indulgence in the discussion of subjects, which his usual companions had probably no concern in, she had the hope of being of real use to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... imagination, thought and will were superadded to the occult quality, and every form of nature had its appropriate Spirit, to be controlled or conciliated by an appropriate ceremonial. This was entitled its SUBSTANTIAL FORM. Thus, physic became a sort of dull poetry, and the art of medicine (for physiology could scarcely be said to exist) was a system of magic, blended with traditional empiricism. Thus the forms of thought proceeded to act in their own emptiness, with no attempt to fill or substantiate them by the information of ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... (that of the Bible was printed in 1584) and original works, and a new kind of historical writing came into being. Side by side with scholars, we have self-educated commoners who wrote both prose and, especially, poetry. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... Allston was at that time the only discriminating judge among the strangers to Keats who were residing abroad, and he took occasion to emphasize in my hearing his opinion of the early effusions of the young poet in words like these:—"They are crude materials of real poetry, and Keats is sure to become ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... little claim to be remembered as a poet. His verse wants vigor, and his examples are deficient in novelty of illustration. The notes to both his poems are, however, valuable, and his poetry is perhaps more frequently read for its prose illustrations than for the beauty of its versification or the value of the truths which it seeks to inculcate. As a portrait-painter he was eclipsed ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... at the village school had been a soldier under the Duke of Marlborough ere he returned to what had been his earlier vocation, that of a pedagogue. He was a rough diamond, yet most revered, with great kindness in his heart. His love of poetry inspired his pupils as much as his stories of campaigns. He had an excellent literary taste. If Goldsmith even when a boy valued this old friend, Paddy Byrne not less saw the goodness, the hidden power, and the brightness of the child. Noll was soon taken away from the village school. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... on modern poetry, by people who know," wrote Mr. Carl Sandburg in Poetry, "ends with dragging in Ezra Pound somewhere. He may be named only to be cursed as wanton and mocker, poseur, trifler and vagrant. Or he may be classed as filling a niche today like that of Keats in ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... me entreat you to be very careful and circumspect. There is no period of life that can compare with this delightful season. It is, or should be, full of sunshine and sparkling with the poetry of life; but alas! to many it is the opposite. A want of judgment—a momentary indiscretion—has not only blotted out this beautiful springtime of life, but has marred, darkened, and blighted the whole ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... is, perhaps, neither zealous nor active. But he is thoughtful and high-principled, and has a method and a purpose in the use which he makes of his money. And you see that he has poetry in his nature too, if you get him upon the right string. How fond he is of the ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... a trifle dubiously. "I—that is, I never was much on poetry, you understand. It wasn't exactly in my line. But never mind. How did it go? I'd like ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... powerful mind than Justin's to reduce all this to its simple Christian expression, to take the poetry of Judaea and the philosophy of Alexandria and to interpret and realise both in the light of the historical events of the birth and life of Christ. 'The Word became flesh' is the key by which Justin is made intelligible, and that key is supplied by the ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... Creator showed Himself to be too much of a naturalist ... too ... what shall I say? His invention lacks poetry. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Myrtle Hazard; and it was not until Clement came into the family circle with the right of eminent domain over the realm of Susan's affections, that this unfortunate discovered that Susan's pretty ways and morning dress and love of poetry and liking for his company had been too much for him, and that he was henceforth to be wretched during the remainder of his natural life, except so far as he could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... willingly entreated in my native tongue for a place of shelter, answered in the following couplet, which convinced me of the truth of the supposition of Mr. Thomas Campbell, the intended lecturer of poetry to the London University, that mankind in an aboriginal state is essentially poetical, and express their ideas either in rhythmical or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... biographical fable are facts, rumors, and poetry. They are connected together and harmonized by the help of suggestion, conjecture, innuendo, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in it who like so to do. But as far as we may regard Lamech's address to his wives in the light of a philological curiosity, it is interesting to observe how naturally the language of passion runs into poetry; and that this, the most ancient poetry in existence, is in strict unison with the peculiar character of subsequent Hebrew poetry; that peculiarity consisting of the repetition of clauses, containing ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... by experience that many things are done by demons, for which the power of heavenly bodies would in no way suffice: for instance, that a man in a state of delirium should speak an unknown tongue, recite poetry and authors of whom he has no previous knowledge; that necromancers make statues to speak and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... him to return to the Continent. After studying botany in Basel for some time he made an extended botanical journey through Switzerland, finally settling in his native city, Berne, as a practising physician. During this time he did not neglect either poetry or botany, publishing anonymously ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... a walking correspondence school," said Archer, unfolding the contents of the parchment envelope. "Herre's a list—all in German. Herre's some poetry—or I s'pose it's poetry, 'cause it's printed all ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... that the community ate. It was nice and warm to see the lights in the castle. It was like something in a book. Perhaps Leicester Abbey was like that. And there were nice sentences in Doctor Cornwell's Spelling Book. They were like poetry but they were only sentences to ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... goodness and affection and cleverness. "He read such learned books! Why, that very last afternoon, when we were all taking naps, he was reading a big leather-covered book from your father's library, all about the Nations. And he could make beautiful poetry," she would tell them, reading over and over with tear-blinded eyes some scraps of verse she had found among the boy's possessions. But most of all she talked of Sam's gladness in getting home, and how strange it was he had taken ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland |
