work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context 5574,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.,2005-06-01 00:00:00 UTC," Painters and Poets never should be fat--
Sons of Apollo! listen well to that.
Fat is foul weather--dims the fancy's sight:
In poverty, the wits more nimbly muster:
Thus stars, when pinch'd by frost, cast keener lustre
On the black blanket of old mother night.

Your heavy fat, I will maintain,
Is perfect birdlime of the brain;
And, as to goldfinches the birdlime clings--
Fat holds ideas by the legs and wings.

Fat flattens the most brilliant thoughts,
Like the buff-stop on harpsichords, or spinets--
Muffling their pretty little tuneful throats,
That would have chirp'd away like linnets.

(cf. pp. 12-13 in 1787 edition)",2012-06-27,14892,•I've included twice: Bird and Harpsichord/Spinet,"""Fat flattens the most brilliant thoughts, / Like the buff-stop on harpsichords, or spinets-- / Muffling their pretty little tuneful throats, / That would have chirp'd away like linnets.""","",2014-03-03 19:52:06 UTC,""