classic: results 25–48 of 142

They get a forked stick to bear him down

And clap the dogs and take him to the town,

And bait him all the day with many dogs,

And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.

He runs along and bites at all he meets:

They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.

Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill;

  Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes:

    No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,

  Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,

    Nor the cropp'd grasses shoot another head.

      But when the fields are still,

  And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,

    And only the white sheep are sometimes seen

    Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green;

  Come Shepherd, and again begin the quest.

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the University of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice, which looked not unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings of a family long since extinct. The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great poem of his country, recollected that one of the ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, had been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together with the tendency to heart-break natural to a young man for the first time out of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily, as he looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apartment.

Being acquainted with a newspaper reporter who had a couple of free passes, I got to see the performance a few nights ago at one of the popular vaudeville houses.

One of the numbers was a violin solo by a striking-looking man not much past forty, but with very gray thick hair. Not being afflicted with a taste for music, I let the system of noises drift past my ears while I regarded the man.

People were telling one another that a newcomer had been seen on the promenade—a lady with a dog. Dmitri Dmitrich Gurov had been a fortnight in Yalta, and was accustomed to its ways, and he, too, had begun to take an interest in fresh arrivals. From his seat in Vernet's outdoor café, he caught sight of a young woman in a toque, passing along the promenade; she was fair and not very tall; after her trotted a white Pomeranian.

Yet everything that touches us, me and you,

takes us together like a violin's bow,

which draws one voice out of two separate strings.

We might be fifty, we might be five,

So snug, so compact, so wise are we!

Under the kitchen-table leg

My knee is pressing against his knee.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

'O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:

The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark

Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,

Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.'

Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little-travelled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o'clock. There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man. He was used to the lack of sun. It had been days since he had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more days must pass before that cheerful orb, due south, would just peep above the sky-line and dip immediately from view.

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry

Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

There's a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;

Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay—

      Stay till the good old year,

So long companion of our way,

      Shakes hands, and leaves us here.

            Oh stay, oh stay,

One little hour, and then away.

It had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento. The North Fork had overflowed its banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable. The few boulders that had marked the summer ford at Simpson's Crossing were obliterated by a vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up stage was stopped at Grangers; the last mail had been abandoned in the tules, the rider swimming for his life. "An area," remarked the "Sierra Avalanche," with pensive local pride, "as large as the State of Massachusetts is now under water."

The west-bound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8:20 A.M. A man with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.

Such Anniversary shall be—

Sometimes—not often—in Eternity—

When farther Parted, than the Common Woe—

Look—feed upon each other's faces—so—

In doubtful meal, if it be possible

Their Banquet's true—

Man is no star, but a quick coal

                  Of mortal fire;

Who blows it not, nor doth control

                  A faint desire,

Lets his own ashes choke his soul.

      When God at first made Man,

      Having a glass of blessings standing by—

Let us (said He) pour on him all we can;

Let the world's riches, which dispersād lie,

      Contract into a span.

Love built a stately house, where Fortune came,

And spinning fancies, she was heard to say

That her fine cobwebs did support the frame,

Whereas they were supported by the same;

But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.

You, if you were sensible,

When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful,

You would not turn and answer me

"The night is wonderful."

Now you must know Mrs. Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty years of age, and for some years past had been troubled with fits, which were perceived coming on her by her going off from her discourse very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he can to null and quash the story.

They all climbed up on a high board fence—

Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes—

Nine little Goblins that had no sense,

And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies;

And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat—

And I asked them what they were staring at.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back…