Sights and stories: some account of a holiday tour through the north of Belgium

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Page 10 - THE BELFRY OF BRUGES IN the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown; Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.
Page 10 - Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes, Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir ; And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.
Page 137 - This indigested vomit of the sea Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. Glad then, as miners who have found the ore, They, with mad labour...
Page 137 - And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest ; And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw Whole shoals of Dutch served up for Cabillau; Or, as they over the new level ranged, For pickled herring, pickled heeren changed. Nature, it seemed, ashamed of her mistake, Would throw their land away at duck and drake, Therefore necessity, that first made kings, Something like government among them brings.
Page 137 - How did they rivet, with gigantic piles, Thorough the centre their new-catched miles, And to the stake a struggling country bound, Where barking waves still bait the forced ground, Building their watery Babel far more high To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.
Page 137 - Collecting anxiously small loads of clay, Less than what building swallows bear away ; Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll, Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.
Page 51 - Spacious and undefaced — but ancient all. "When I may read of tilts in days of old, Of tournays graced by chieftains of renown, Fair dames, grave citizens, and warriors bold — If fancy could portray some stately town, Which of such pomp fit theatre might be, Fair Bruges ! I shall then remember thee.
Page 137 - Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid, And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played, As if on purpose it on land had come To show them what's their mare liberum.
Page 51 - Fair city, worthy of her ancient fame ! The season of her splendour is gone by, Yet everywhere its monuments remain : Temples which rear their stately heads on high, Canals that intersect the fertile plain — "Wide streets and squares, with many a court and hall, Spacious and undefaced — but ancient all. "When I may read of tilts in days of old, Of...
Page 169 - It is better to sit than to stand, it is better to lie than to sit, it is better to sleep than to wake, but Death is the best of all!

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