American Literature: A Text-book for the Use of Schools and Colleges |
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American literature appeared Artemus Ward artistic Atlantic Monthly beauty born Boston Bryant called career century character charm Civil Cotton Mather criticism death descriptions Edited Emerson England English essays experience expression eyes feeling fiction Franklin friends genius gives grace Hawthorne heart humor humorist imagination Indian intellect Irving John JULIAN HAWTHORNE later less literary lived Longfellow magazine Margaret Fuller ment mind moral N. P. Willis narrative Nathaniel Hawthorne never novelist novels original passion patriotism period philosophy Poe's poems poet poetic poetry political productions prose published Puritan R. H. Dana reader romance Scarlet Letter seems sentiment Sir Launfal slavery soul spirit stories strong style success sympathy temperament thee things Thoreau thought tion touch truth Uncle Remus vein verse volume Webster William words writings written wrote
Popular passages
Page 107 - THE RAINY DAY. THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary ; It rains, and the wind is never weary ; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary. • My life is cold, and dark, and dreary ; It rains, and the wind is never weary ; My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast And the days are dark and dreary. Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ; Behind the clouds is the sun still...
Page 60 - In Heaven a spirit doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute"; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.
Page 104 - There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there ! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair...
Page 61 - Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely — flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell 50 From my lyre within the sky.
Page 214 - Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold...
Page 61 - And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings, The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings. But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love's a grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star.
Page 107 - TELL me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream ! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they Life is real ! Life is earnest ! And the grave is not its goal ; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
Page 197 - Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Masnads sang: " Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o
Page 132 - By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.
Page 132 - Parian wreaths; A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work. And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.