text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Thy sovran command, that Man should find grace;
Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note.
(Bk. III, ll. 13-40)",2013-06-10 18:12:43 UTC,"""Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move / Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird / Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid / Tunes her nocturnal note.""",2003-08-21 00:00:00 UTC,Book III,"",2009-07-31,"",•Exordium. I've included twice: Feeding and Birds,Searching in HDIS (Poetry),9453,3636
"Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver wings;
And, till prepar'd for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
(ll. 49-56)",2013-06-04 15:20:31 UTC,"""Here at the fountain's sliding foot, / Or at some fruit tree's mossy root, / Casting the body's vest aside, / My soul into the boughs does glide; / There like a bird it sits and sings, / Then whets, and combs its silver wings; / And, till prepar'd for longer flight, / Waves in its plumes the various light.""",2006-12-15 00:00:00 UTC,"","",2012-04-04,Animals,2008-12-03,"Reading Norton Critical Edition of Seventeenth Century British Poetry, 1603-1660; found again reading Rosalie Osmond's Imagining the Soul: A History (Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing, 2003), 139.",9692,3757
"Be it therefore known to all men by these presents, that I Don John Hard-name (you'll hear more on't if you have patience to read further) Citizen and, &c. of London, being now arriv'd to the precise 30th. Year of my Life, that time when the gaities of Fancy being workt off, the Judgment begins to Burnish, and a Man comes to years of Discretion, if ever he will be so:--Wandring one Evening thro' a Cypress Grove--(I won't be positive, it might be Hazle, but t'other sounds better) revolving in my rambling Brain the Varietyes of Human Affairs, happen'd i' the Drove of Thoughts, that swarm'd up and down my Noddle to reflect on my own self (Sir, Your Humble Servant) and what strange checquered Fortunes had filled the Lines of my Horoscope; I followed my self in my busy Imagination from my Cradle to my Grave, in all my Rises and Falls, my Ups and Downs, and heres and theres and every where's, and upon the whole sincerely protest unto thee, O judicious, gentle, courteous Reader, that after the severest Investigation both of History and Experience, I can no where find my Parallel, and am apt now to believe what I thought too much my Friends have sometimes bin pleas'd to Complement me with, that I was indeed an Original.
(I, 1-2)",2013-06-18 20:53:27 UTC,"""Wandring one Evening thro' a Cypress Grove--(I won't be positive, it might be Hazle, but t'other sounds better) revolving in my rambling Brain the Varietyes of Human Affairs, happen'd i' the Drove of Thoughts, that swarm'd up and down my Noddle to reflect on my own self (Sir, Your Humble Servant) and what strange checquered Fortunes had filled the Lines of my Horoscope.""",2013-06-18 20:53:27 UTC,"","",,Animals,"",C-H Lion,20949,7476
"Yet if the Organ by Reception see,
How flows the Poison from an Envious Eye?
How do his Opticks venemous Beams instill,
And Great Men in the height of Glory kill?
Whence hath the Basilisk his deadly Ray;
That can th' unwary Wretch at distance slay?
How is't, if Wolves first upon Men do look,
Men are with Hoarsness, or with Dumbness strook?
Whence are the Charms flow from a Beauteous Eye?
That do the strugling Slave in Fetters tie?
What Energy doth thrô his Vitals move;
What Magick Charm doth stirr him up to Love?
When Thoughts on winged Particles advance,
When piercing Looks the Lover's mutually entrance,
And their Souls on the fiery Atoms dance?
How is it Cats and Owls see in the Night,
When no Ray can illuminate the Sight.
Their Eyes in Darkness shine; why may not We
Inferr, that they by their own Beams do see?
(ll. 168-186)",2013-06-19 19:58:10 UTC,"""What Energy doth thrô his Vitals move; / What Magick Charm doth stirr him up to Love? / When Thoughts on winged Particles advance, / When piercing Looks the Lover's mutually entrance, / And their Souls on the fiery Atoms dance?""",2013-06-19 19:58:10 UTC,"","",,"",Arguing for eyebeams against passive reception...,C-H Lion,21032,3876
"Then, Death, so call'd, is but old Matter dress'd
In some new Figure, and a vary'd Vest:
Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies;
And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies,
By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossest,
And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast;
Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind;
From Tenement to Tenement is toss'd;
The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost:
And, as the soften'd Wax new Seals receives,
This Face assumes, and that Impression leaves;
Now call'd by one, now by another Name;
The Form is only chang'd, the Wax is still the same:
So Death, so call'd, can but the Form deface,
Th' immortal Soul flies out in empty space;
To seek her Fortune in some other Place.
(p. 512, cf. p. 821 in OUP)",2014-05-26 20:18:09 UTC,"""Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement to Tenement is toss'd; / The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost.""",2014-05-26 20:18:09 UTC,"","",,Rooms,"",Reading,23860,7163
"Wherefore, when a Man hath once rendred this way of Thinking, familiar, sometimes the subject of his Meditation will lead him to Thoughts, and excite Affections, full of Serenity, and Joy, like those fair Mornings, where the cloudless Beams, and cherishing warmth of the Sun, inviting the Lark to aspire towards Heaven, make her at once mount, and sing; and when the Mind is rais'd to such a welcome and elevated state, to listen to an ordinary Temptation, a Man must forgo his Pleasure, as well as violate his Duty, and in the difference betwixt the Imployment that busies him, and that whereto he is sollicited to stoop, he will easily discern, that his Innocence will not be the onely thing that he would lose by so disadvantageous a Change; And sometimes too, whether or no the Imployment that busies his Thoughts, happen to be so delightful, it will however appear to be so considerable, that it will seasonably furnish him with that excellent Answer of Nehemiah, to those that would have diverted him from building of the Temple, to come to a Treaty with them, I am doing a great Work, (and such indeed is the serving God, and the improving the Mind, whether we consider its Importance, or its Difficulty) so that I cannot come down; why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you? Which last Expression suits very well with the present case, since, when a pious Soul is once got upon the wing of Contemplation, she must descend and stoop to exchange her converse with Heavenly objects, for one with Earthly vanities, and much more must she debase and degrade her self, if the things she is tempted to, be Lusts, which she will thence clearly discern, to be as Low as the Hell they belong to, and deserve.
(pp. 6-7)",2014-07-28 18:21:12 UTC,"""Which last Expression suits very well with the present case, since, when a pious Soul is once got upon the wing of Contemplation, she must descend and stoop to exchange her converse with Heavenly objects, for one with Earthly vanities, and much more must she debase and degrade her self, if the things she is tempted to, be Lusts, which she will thence clearly discern, to be as Low as the Hell they belong to, and deserve.""",2014-07-28 18:21:12 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,24335,7988