Familiar Quotations Part 82

St. 4.

The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream.

_Intimations of Immorality_.

St 5.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From G.o.d, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

St. xi.

To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

THE EXCURSION.

Book i.

The vision and the faculty divine.

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.

The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.

Book ii.

With battlements, that on their restless fronts Bore stars.

Book iii.

Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.

Monastic brotherhood, upon rock Aerial.

Book iv.

I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped sh.e.l.l; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea.

One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A pa.s.sionate intuition.

Book vi.

Spires whose silent fingers point to heaven.

Book vii.

Wisdom married to immortal verse.

Book ix.

The primal duties s.h.i.+ne aloft, like stars, The charities, that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers.

HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER.

1770-1834.

_Lines to Lady A. Hamilton_.

Too late I stayed--forgive the crime; Unheeded flew the hours.

How noiseless falls the foot of time, That only treads on flowers!

DR. GEORGE SEWELL.

--1726.