work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5612,"",Reading,2003-07-29 00:00:00 UTC,"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)",2009-12-28,14999,•I've included all the stanzas but the first because of the density of metaphors (8 entries total).,"""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.""",Inhabitants,2013-11-17 17:09:00 UTC,""
6118,Lockean Philosophy,"Searching in ""fancy"" and ""gold"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-06-01 00:00:00 UTC,"Nor only on the wreaths for Genius twined
Fall the deep shadows of this Cynic spleen;
Mark how ungenerous the beauteous strain
Closes, that sings the desolate of heart,
Forlorn Omai, on his native hills
Wandering, with eyes that search the watry waste
""For sight of ship from England!""--why pollute
Thy lovely requiem to his vanish'd joys
With heartless taunt on the illustrious band
That led him hither, and restor'd him back,
At his kind, natural wish, that nobly sprung
From patriot love, too probably, alas!
Requited ill, and pregnant with the pangs
Of fruitless, stung regret. Was it for gain
That those illustrious Chiefs, with daring hand,
Rais'd the pale curtains of the southern Pole?--
Loth as thou art to credit human worth,
O! Bard unjust! thou know'st that not for gold,
Gems, or false glory, they explor'd and brav'd
Climes dangerous and unknown; but to diffuse
The blessings mild of cultivated life
Amid the perilous and lonely haunts
Of the lugubrious savage, straying slow,
Silent and comfortless, o'er pathless wastes
Torrid, or frore. Thus on the worth, that rose
Its nation's honour, thy immortal muse,
Which should record it to succeeding times,
For the bright, fostering dews of just applause,
Sheds cankerous scorn. And was it not enough
To impute to every wild and idle weed
Of human frailty, such envenom'd juice
As slowly circles through thy latent veins,
Death-giving hemlock?--Was not that enough,
Without enlisting a much favour'd muse
Against Just Praise, the spur of great designs,
And O! twice blest, like Mercy? Was thy lyre
Thus highly gifted for such warfare rude?
For notes, O! how unlike the strains that stole
From the sweet harp of Jesse's pitying son,
Before whose kind, assuasive, melting tones
Flew the despair which spread her raven-wing
O'er the sunk spirit of Saul!--Thee, Bard morose,
Churlish amid thy fancy's golden stores,
Thee will I teach, censorious as thou art,
What is not Virtue. Listen to my verse;
Confute it if thou canst;--if not, admit
The force of Truth, though rushing from a lyre
Less richly strung, less solemn than thine own!",,16161,"•Footnote to ""beauteous strain"" gives, ""See latter part of the first book of the Task. The episode begins, But far above the rest, and with most cause
I pity thee.--""","""Thee, Bard morose, / Churlish amid thy fancy's golden stores, / Thee will I teach, censorious as thou art, / What is not Virtue.""",Coinage,2014-06-11 14:40:38 UTC,""
7365,"",Searching in HDIS,2013-03-23 19:42:17 UTC,"It appears to me that every creature has some notion--or rather relish, of the sublime. Riches, and the consequent state, are the sublime of weak minds:--These images fill, nay, are too big for their narrow souls.
(p. 67)",,20042,"","""These images fill, nay, are too big for their narrow souls.""","",2013-03-23 19:42:17 UTC,Chapter XI
7365,"",Searching in HDIS,2013-03-23 19:44:04 UTC,"Henry was a man of learning; he had also studied mankind, and knew many of the intricacies of the human heart, from having felt the infirmities of his own. His taste was just, as it had a standard--- Nature, which he observed with a critical eye. Mary could not help thinking that in his company her mind expanded, as he always went below the surface. She increased her stock of ideas, and her taste was improved.
(pp. 73-4)",,20043,"","""Mary could not help thinking that in his company her mind expanded, as he always went below the surface. She increased her stock of ideas, and her taste was improved.""","",2013-03-23 19:44:04 UTC,Chapter XII
7365,"",Searching in HDIS,2013-03-23 19:49:51 UTC,"He had called her his dear girl; the words might have fallen from him by accident; but they did not fall to the ground. My child! His child, what an association of ideas! If I had had a father, such a father!--She could not dwell on the thoughts, the wishes which obtruded themselves. Her mind was unhinged, and passion unperceived filled her whole soul. Lost, in waking dreams, she considered and reconsidered Henry's account of himself; till she actually thought she would tell Ann--a bitter recollection then roused her out of her reverie; and aloud she begged forgiveness of her.
(pp. 96-7)",,20047,"","""Her mind was unhinged, and passion unperceived filled her whole soul.""","",2013-03-23 19:49:51 UTC,Chapter XVI
7365,"",Searching in HDIS,2013-03-23 19:54:53 UTC,"""Dear enthusiastic creature,"" whispered Henry, ""how you steal into my soul."" She still continued. ""The same turn of mind which leads me to adore the Author of all Perfection--which leads me to conclude that he only can fill my soul; forces me to admire the faint image--the shadows of his attributes here below; and my imagination gives still bolder strokes to them. I know I am in some degree under the influence of a delusion--but does not this strong delusion prove that I myself 'am of subtiler essence than the trodden clod:' these flights of the imagination point to futurity; I cannot banish them. Every cause in nature produces an effect; and am I an exception to the general rule? have I desires implanted in me only to make me miserable? will they never be gratified? shall I never be happy? My feelings do not accord with the notion of solitary happiness. In a state of bliss, it will be the society of beings we can love, without the alloy that earthly infirmities mix with our best affections, that will constitute great part of our happiness.
(pp. 108-9)",,20049,"","""The same turn of mind which leads me to adore the Author of all Perfection--which leads me to conclude that he only can fill my soul; forces me to admire the faint image--the shadows of his attributes here below; and my imagination gives still bolder strokes to them.""","",2013-03-23 19:58:50 UTC,Chapter XVIII
7365,"",Searching in HDIS,2013-03-23 20:19:33 UTC,"In England then landed the forlorn wanderer. She looked round for some few moments---her affections were not attracted to any particular part of the Island. She knew none of the inhabitants of the vast city to which she was going: the mass of buildings appeared to her a huge body without an informing soul. As she passed through the streets in an hackney-coach, disgust and horror alternately filled her mind. She met some women drunk; and the manners of those who attacked the sailors, made her shrink into herself, and exclaim, are these my fellow creatures!
(p. 131)",,20055,"","""As she passed through the streets in an hackney-coach, disgust and horror alternately filled her mind.""","",2013-03-23 20:19:33 UTC,Chapter XXII
7365,"",Searching in HDIS,2013-03-23 20:43:29 UTC,"These occupations engrossed her mind; but there were hours when all her former woes would return and haunt her.--Whenever she did, or said, any thing she thought Henry would have approved of--she could not avoid thinking with anguish, of the rapture his approbation ever conveyed to her heart--a heart in which there was a void, that even benevolence and religion could not fill. The latter taught her to struggle for resignation; and the former rendered life supportable.
Her delicate state of health did not promise long life. In moments of solitary sadness, a gleam of joy would dart across her mind--She thought she was hastening to that world where there is neither marrying, nor giving in marriage.
(pp. 186-187)",,20064,THE END,"""Whenever she did, or said, any thing she thought Henry would have approved of--she could not avoid thinking with anguish, of the rapture his approbation ever conveyed to her heart--a heart in which there was a void, that even benevolence and religion could not fill.""","",2013-03-23 20:44:42 UTC,Chapter XXXI
7439,"",Searching in C-H Lion,2013-06-14 03:56:33 UTC,"These, Emmeline had never yet seen; nor had she now courage entirely to peruse them. The little she read, however, filled her heart with the most painful sensations and her eyes with tears.
(I, p. 75)",,20635,"","""The little she read, however, filled her heart with the most painful sensations and her eyes with tears.""","",2013-06-14 03:56:33 UTC,""
7439,"",Searching in C-H Lion,2013-06-14 04:19:45 UTC,"[...] It was yet however very much the fashion to admire me; and my husband seemed still to take some delight in hearing and reading in the daily papers that Lady Adelina Trelawny was the most elegant figure at Court, or that every beauty at the Opera was eclipsed on her entrance. The eagerness and avidity with which I had entered, from the confinement of the nursery, to a life of continual dissipation, was now considerably abated. I continued it from habit, and because I knew not how to employ my time otherwise; but I felt a dreary vacuity in my heart; and amid splendor and admiration was unhappy.
(II, pp. 241-2)",,20655,"","""I continued it from habit, and because I knew not how to employ my time otherwise; but I felt a dreary vacuity in my heart; and amid splendor and admiration was unhappy.""","",2013-06-14 04:19:45 UTC,""