United States or Albania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All this is precisely the conduct of Robin Goodfellow, described so charmingly by Milton: "Tells how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly get, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lays him down the lubber-fiend, And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full, out of door he flings Ere the first cock his matin rings."
But see, his face is black, and full of blood; His eye-balls farther out than when he lived, Staring full ghastly, like a strangled man; His hair uprear'd his nostrils stretch'd with struggling, His hands abroad display'd, as one who grasp'd And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued.
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low; So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart; Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel, While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest, Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast,
It seem'd, as it slowly dropp'd away, like the minute which precedes the climax of an exquisitely-performed tragedy, when some mighty master of the histrionic art is treading the stage, and you and the multitude around you are waiting, with stretch'd nerves and suspended breath, in expectation of the terrible catastrophe. "Tim is asleep, sir," at length said one of the boys who sat near him.
"What elegance and grandeur wide expand, The pride of Turkey and of Persia land! Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread, And couches stretch'd around in seemly band, And endless pillows rise to prop the head. * Here languid Beauty kept her pale-faced court."
Here, too, were living flowers, Which, like a bud compacted, Their purple cups contracted; And now in open blossom spread, Stretch'd, like green anthers, many a seeking head. And arborets of jointed stone were there, And plants of fibres fine as silkworm's thread; Yea, beautiful as mermaid's golden hair Upon the waves dispread.
"Her eldest daughter then she sped To fetch Child Dyring out of bed"; instead of Jamieson's And, still worse, "Out from their chest she stretch'd her bones And rent her way through earth and stones"; where Jamieson is not only more literal, but more forcible, "Wi' her banes sae stark a bowt she gae Hath riven both wall and marble gray." The original is better than either,
Thus he spake, great Hector stretch'd his arms To take the child: but back the infant shrank, Crying, and sought his nurse's sheltering breast, Scar'd by the brazen helm and horse-hair plume.
I have asked several ladies of my acquaintance, who declare that they never heard of such a thing, which, perhaps, the reader will agree with me, is all humbug. There leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, on the deep, Stretch'd like a promontory, sleeps or swims.
Slow o'er the Apennine, with bleeding feet, A patient Pilgrim wound his lonely way, To deck the Lady of Loretto's seat With all the little wealth his zeal could pay. From mountain-tops cold died the evening ray, And, stretch'd in twilight, slept the vale below; And now the last, last purple streaks of day Along the melancholy West fade slow.
Word Of The Day