PoemsClassic Books, 1909 |
Common terms and phrases
Agatha angel Antonio Stradivari aught beauteous blent bliss breast breath child CHOIR INVISIBLE COUNTESS LINDA cries dark dear death delight divine dream earth eyes face faith far-off feed feel Fidelio flowers gaze GEORGE ELIOT give glad glory glow Gluck GRAF grew growing Guildenstern hand happy hear heart heaven hold honour human human voices idlesse JOIN THE CHOIR Jubal King Laertes light limbs Lisa LISA LOVED Lisa's listened live look louis d'ors lyre maid man's Märgen memory mighty MINOR PROPHET Minuccio morning Moses Naldo never nought o'er Orpheus Osric pain passion paused poems pray Rosencranz seemed sense sentience Sicily sing smiles song soul speech spirit star strong sway sweet tell thee things thou thought touch truth Tubal-Cain turned Twixt vegetarian violins vision voice warm wings woman wonder word worship wrought young
Popular passages
Page 271 - O, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence : live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self. In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues.
Page 272 - Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man. So we inherit that sweet purity For which we struggled, failed, and agonized With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Page 196 - My work is mine, And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked I should rob God — since He is fullest good — Leaving a blank instead of violins. I say, not God himself can make man's best Without best men to help Him.
Page 7 - No budding branch, no pebble from the brook, No form, no shadow, but new dearness took From the one thought that life must have an end; And the last parting now began to send Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss, Thrilling them into finer tenderness. Then Memory disclosed her face divine, That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves, And shows the presence that no sunlight craves, No space, no warmth, but moves among them all; Gone and yet here,...
Page 195 - Tis a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins ; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less. " But he : " 'T were purgatory here to make them ill ; And for my fame — when any master holds 'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, He will be glad that Stradivari lived, Made violins, and made them of the best. The masters only know whose work is good : pay They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill I give them instruments to play upon, God choosing...
Page 180 - Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways, Stroked down my tippet, set my brother's frill, Then with the benediction of her gaze Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still Across the homestead to the rookery elms, Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound, So rich for us, we counted them as realms With varied products...
Page 196 - ... slacked I should rob God — since He is fullest good — Leaving a blank instead of violins. I say, not God Himself can make man's best Without best men to help Him. I am one best Here in Cremona, using sunlight well To fashion finest maple till it serves More cunningly than throats, for harmony. 'Tis rare delight : I would not change my skill To be the Emperor with bungling hands, And lose my work, which comes as natural As self at waking.
Page 272 - And all our rarer, better, truer self. That sobbed religiously in yearning song, That watched to ease the burthen of the world, Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better — saw within A worthier image for the sanctuary, And shaped it forth before the multitude Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mixed with love — That better self shall live till human Time Shall fold its eyelids, and the human -sky Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb Unread forever.
Page 174 - It comes in moments of heroic love, Unjealous joy in joy not made for us — In conscious triumph of the good within Making us worship goodness that rebukes. Even our failures are a prophecy, Even our yearnings and our bitter tears After that fair and true we cannot grasp ; As patriots who seem to die in vain Presentiment of better things on earth Sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls To admiration, self-renouncing love...