The World's Great Masterpieces

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 793 PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. Bailey, Philip James, an English poet, born at Nottingham, April 22, 1816. His father was the editor of The Nottingham Mercury. The son, after training iat schools in Nottingham, entered the University of Glasgow in 1831; two years afterward he began the study of law, and was called to the English bar in 1840. He had in the meanwhile devoted himself to literature rather than law. His first poem, Festus, was mainly written before he had completed his twentieth year, and was published in 1839. Few poems have ever excited such immediate attention; and there were not wanting then, and for years afterward, critics who saw in the author of Festus the man who was to be the great poet of the age. In later editions, Festus was increased to about three times its original length. Subsequent to Festus Mr. Bailey put forth several other poems, the principal of which are: The Angel World (1850); The Mystic (1855); The Age: A Colloquial Satire (1858); and The Universal Hymn (1867). Life. (FromFestns.) Festus. Man hath a knowledge of a time to come; His most important knowledge; the weight lies Nearest the short end, this life; and the world Depends on what's to be. I would deny The present, if the future. Oh! there is A life to come, or all's a dream. Lucifer. And all May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds, Clear, moving, full of speech and order. Why May not, then, all this world be but a dream Of God's ? Fear not. Some morning God may waken. Festus. I would it were so. This life's a mystery. The value of a thought cannot be told; But it is clearly worth a thousand lives Like many men's. And yet men love to live, As if mere life were worth the living for. Lucifer. What but perdition will it be to most? ...