The seasons. To which is prefixed, the life of the author, by P. Murdoch, and an essay on the plan and manner of the poem: by J. Aikin

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Page 47 - Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot...
Page 179 - And day to day, through the revolving year ; Admiring, sees her in her every shape ; Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart ; Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more.
Page 233 - Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale ; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound his stupendous praise whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Page 12 - Base envy withers at another's joy, And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Page 17 - With eye attentive mark the springing game. Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook : Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some, With various hand proportion'd to their force.
Page 195 - Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is; Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet.
Page 118 - Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge The glowworm lights his gem ; and through the dark A moving radiance twinkles.
Page 135 - Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, A myrtle rises, far from human eye, And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild...
Page 229 - In starving solitude! while luxury, In palaces, lay straining her low thought— To form unreal wants: why heaven-born truth, And moderation fair, wore the red marks Of superstition's scourge: why licensed pain, That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe, Imbitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd! Ye noble few! who here unbending stand...
Page 45 - But happy they ! the happiest of their kind ! Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend. 'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws, Unnatural oft and foreign to the mind, That binds their peace, but harmony itself, Attuning...

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