text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"A DIALOGUE
Says Body to Mind, ''Tis amazing to see,
We're so nearly related yet never agree,
But lead a most wrangling strange sort of life,
As great plagues to each other as husband and wife.
The fault's all your own, who, with flagrant oppression,
Encroach every day on my lawful possession.
The best room in my house you have seized for your own,
And turned the whole tenement quite upside down,
While you hourly call in a disorderly crew
Of vagabond rogues, who have nothing to do
But to run in and out, hurry-scurry, and keep
Such a horrible uproar, I can't get to sleep.
There's my kitchen sometimes is as empty as sound,
I call for my servants, not one's to be found:
They are all sent out on your ladyship's errand,
To fetch some more riotous guests in, I warrant!
And since things are growing, I see, worse and worse,
I'm determined to force you to alter your course.'
Poor Mind, who heard all with extreme moderation,
Thought it now time to speak, and make her allegation:
''Tis I that, methinks, have most cause to complain,
Who am cramped and confined like a slave in a chain.
I did but step out, on some weighty affairs,
To visit last night, my good friends in the stars,
When, before I was got half as high as the moon,
You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down;
Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight,
And shut me in caverns as dark as the night.'
''Twas no more,' replied Body, 'than what you deserved;
While you rambled abroad, I at home was half starved:
And, unless I had closely confined you in hold,
You had left me to perish with hunger and cold.'
'I've a friend,' answers Mind, 'who, though slow, is yet sure,
And will rid me at last of your insolent power:
Will knock down your walls, the whole fabric demolish,
And at once your strong holds and my slavery abolish:
And while in your dust your dull ruins decay,
I'll snap off my chains and fly freely away.'
(p. 168)",2013-06-04 15:10:00 UTC,"""I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark as the night.""",2009-09-14 19:36:56 UTC,I've included the complete poem,Dualism,2004-11-22,Inhabitants,"",Reading,12397,4685
"O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing
Thy wisdom tempered with the milder ray
Of soft humanity, and kindness bland:
So wide its influence, that the bright beams
Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge,
Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed,
Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total night--
On me it fell, and cheered my joyless heart.
Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light
To the dark soul; impatient, she rejects,
And fain would push the heavenly stranger back;
She loathes the cranny which admits the day;
Confused, afraid of the intruding guest;
Disturbed, unwilling to receive the beam,
Which to herself her native darkness shows.
The effort rude to quench the cheering flame
Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze
With sullen envy, and admiring pride,
Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair
Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense,
And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam.
Oft as I trod my native wilds alone,
Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die;
The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped
By liberal converse, rude ideas strove
Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died.
Thus rust the Mind's best powers. Yon starry orbs,
Majestic ocean, flowery vales, gay groves,
Eye-wasting lawns, and heaven-attempting hills
Which bound th' horizon, and which curb the view;
All those, with beauteous imagery, awaked
My ravished soul to ecstasy untaught,
To all the transport the rapt sense can bear;
But all expired, for want of powers to speak;
All perished in the mind as soon as born,
Erased more quick than cyphers on the shore,
O'er which cruel waves, unheedful roll.
Such timid rapture as young Edwin seized,
When his lone footsteps on the Sage obtrude,
Whose noble precept charmed his wondering
Such rapture filled Lactilla's vacant soul,
When the bright Moralist, in softness dressed,
Opes all the glories of the mental world,
Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune
The budding sentiment, uprear the stalk
Of feeble fancy, bid idea live,
Woo the abstracted spirit form its cares,
And gently guide her to scenes of peace.
Mine was than balm, and mine the grateful heart,
Which breathes its thanks in rough, but timid strains.
(ll. 30-79, pp. 395-6)",2013-11-17 16:56:53 UTC,"""Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light / To the dark soul; impatient, she rejects, / And fain would push the heavenly stranger back; / She loathes the cranny which admits the day; / Confused, afraid of the intruding guest; / Disturbed, unwilling to receive the beam, / Which to herself her native darkness shows.""",2003-07-29 00:00:00 UTC,"","",2003-10-23,Rooms,"•I've included all the stanzas but the first because of the density of metaphors (8 entries total).
•INTEREST. There is more at work here: cranny, guest, etc. -- Yes, a Camera Obscura metaphor.",Reading,14992,5612
"Ye pale Inhabitants of Night,
Before my intellectual Sight
In solemn Pomp ascend:
O tell how trifling now appears
The Train of idle Hopes and Fears
That varying Life attend.
Ye faithless Idols of our Sense,
Here own how vain your fond Pretence,
Ye empty Names of Joy!
Your transient Forms like Shadows pass,
Frail Offspring of the magic Glass,
Before the mental Eye.
The dazzling Colours, falsely bright,
Attract the gazing vulgar Sight
With superficial State:
Thro' Reason's clearer Optics view'd,
How stript of all it's Pomp, how rude
Appears the painted Cheat.
(pp. 80-1)",2014-07-15 16:04:26 UTC,"Melancholy's ""transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye.""",2011-06-23 04:17:33 UTC,"",Mind's Eye,,Mirror,"",Reading,18775,6964