updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2009-11-11 17:55:48 UTC,8441,"Joyless I hail the solemn gloom,
Joyless I view the pillars vast and rude
Where erst the fool of Superstition trod,
In smoking blood imbrued
And rising from the tomb--
Mistaken homage to an unknown God.
Fancy, whither dost thou stray,
Whither dost thou wing thy way?
Check the rising wild delight--
Ah! what avails this awful sight?
Maria is no more!
Why, curst remembrance, wilt thou haunt my mind?
The blessings past are misery now;
Upon her lovely brow
Her lovelier soul she wore.
Soft as the evening gale
When breathing perfumes through the rose-hedged vale,
She was my joy, my happiness refined.
All hail, ye solemn horrors of this scene,
The blasted oak, the dusky green.
Ye dreary altars, by whose side
The druid-priest, in crimson dyed,
The solemn dirges sung,
And drove the golden knife
Into the palpitating seat of life,
When, rent with horrid shouts, the distant valleys rung.
The bleeding body bends,
The glowing purple stream ascends,
Whilst the troubled spirit near
Hovers in the steamy air;
Again the sacred dirge they sing,
Again the distant hill and coppice-valley ring.
Soul of my dear Maria, haste,
Whilst my languid spirits waste;
When from this my prison free,
Catch my soul, it flies to thee;
Death had doubly armed his dart,
In piercing thee, it pierced my heart.","","""Why, curst remembrance, wilt thou haunt my mind?""",3212,,"Searching ""haunt"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2004-06-08 00:00:00 UTC,"","",""
2009-09-14 19:33:38 UTC,8551,"Observe the partner of thy future state:
If no strong vice is stamped upon her mind,
Take her; and let her ease thy amorous pain:
A little error proves her human-kind.
","","A partner of one's ""future state"" should not have ""strong vice"" ""stamped upon her mind""",3289,,"Searching ""stamp"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-04-07 00:00:00 UTC,"","",""
2009-09-14 19:33:39 UTC,8596,He plants himself in all her Nerves
Just as a Husbandman his mould
And she becomes his dwelling place
And Garden fruitful seventy fold
An aged Shadow soon he fades
Wandring round an Earthly Cot
Full filled all with gems & gold
Which he by industry had got
And these are the gems of the Human Soul
The rubies & pearls of a lovesick eye
The countless gold of the akeing heart
The martyrs groan & the lovers sigh,"","""And these are the gems of the Human Soul""",3327,,Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2005-05-27 00:00:00 UTC,•From the Pickering Manuscript.,"",""
2010-07-02 06:02:07 UTC,17922,"The brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile.
Le cerveau sécrète la pensée comme le foie sécrète la bile.","","""The brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile.""",6731,,Reading William James,2010-07-02 05:58:31 UTC,REVISIT and fill out context.,"",""
2011-07-20 17:00:58 UTC,18938,"O paint our dungeons, where, with putrid breath,
The wretch, desponding, pants, and sighs for death:
Paint the poor felon, doom'd, ah! doom'd to die,
Wan the pale cheek, and horror-struck the eye;
With languid limbs that droop to earth in pain,
Press'd, loaded, lab'ring with a clanking chain;
While, on the stillness of the midnight air,
Sad moans the voice of Mis'ry and Despair:
Paint all the horrors of the midnight shade,
Theft's iron crow, and Murder's reeking blade.
Paint the poor objects that we hourly meet,
The wrecks of beauty crowding every street;
Daughters of Innocence, ere Demon Art
Won on the weakness of too soft a heart;
And doom'd to infamy the tender kiss,
Due to pure love alone and wedded bliss.
Paint courts, whose sorceries, too seducing bind,
In chains, in shameful slavish chains, the mind;
Courts, where unblushing Flatt'ry finds the way,
And casts a cloud o'er Truth's eternal ray.
And quote the sage*, who courts had serv'd and known:--
'O Crassus, let me fly, and live alone:
Though much I love thee, let our commerce end,
Nor from his solitude recall thy friend.
Thanks to the gods, my servile hours are o'er,
And, oh, let Mem'ry mention courts no more!'
*A philosopher named Alexander, the friend of Crassus.","","""Paint courts, whose sorceries, too seducing bind, / In chains, in shameful slavish chains, the mind; / Courts, where unblushing Flatt'ry finds the way, / And casts a cloud o'er Truth's eternal ray.""",7023,,"Searching ""mind"" and ""chains"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2011-07-20 16:58:28 UTC,"","",Fetters
2013-08-20 16:35:38 UTC,22511," My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
(ll. 39-46)","","""I may not hope from outward forms to win / The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.""",7639,,Reading at RPO,2013-08-20 16:35:38 UTC,"","",""
2013-08-20 16:37:39 UTC,22512,"O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth--
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
(ll. 47-58)","","""Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth / A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud / Enveloping the Earth--""",7639,,Reading at RPO,2013-08-20 16:37:39 UTC,"","",""
2013-08-20 16:39:06 UTC,22513,"O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud--
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud--
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
(ll. 59-75)","","""O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me / What this strong music in the soul may be!""",7639,,Reading at RPO,2013-08-20 16:39:06 UTC,"","",""
2013-08-20 16:40:47 UTC,22514,"Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,
Reality's dark dream!
I turn from you, and listen to the wind,
Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out
That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without,
Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree,
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,
Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,
Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold!
What tell'st thou now about?
'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout,
With groans, of trampled men, with smarting wounds--
At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!
But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!
And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings--all is over--
It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!
A tale of less affright,
And tempered with delight,
As Otway's self had framed the tender lay,--
'Tis of a little child
Upon a lonesome wild,
Nor far from home, but she hath lost her way:
And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,
And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.
(ll. 94-125)","","""Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, / Reality's dark dream! / I turn from you, and listen to the wind, / Which long has raved unnoticed.""",7639,,Reading at RPO,2013-08-20 16:40:47 UTC,"","",""
2017-01-18 16:34:03 UTC,25007,"[...] This would not disturb me a tittle, if I thought well of the work myself -- I should feel a confidence, that it would win it's way at last / but this is not the case with Gesner's Der erste Schiffer. -- It may as well lie here, till Tomkins wants it -- let him only give me a week's notice, and I will transmit it to you with a large margin. -- Bowles's Stanzas on Navigation are among the best in that second Volume / but the whole volume is woefully inferior to it's Predecessor. There reigns thro' all the blank verse poems such a perpetual trick of moralizing every thing -- which is very well, occasionally -- but never to see or describe any interesting appearance in nature, without connecting it by dim analogies with the moral world, proves faintness of Impression. Nature has her proper interest; & he will know what it is, who believes & feels, that every Thing has a Life of it's own, & that we are all one Life. A Poet's Heart & Intellect should be combined, intimately combined & unified, with the great appearances in Nature -- & not merely held in solution & loose mixture with them, in the shape of formal Similies. I do not mean to exclude these formal Similies -- there are moods of mind, in which they are natural -- pleasing moods of mind, & such as a Poet will often have, & sometimes express; but they are not his highest, & most appropriate moods, They are 'Sermoni propiora' which I once translated -- ' Properer for a Sermon.' The truth is -- Bowles has indeed the sensibility of a poet; but he has not the Passion of a great Poet. His latter Writings all want native Passion -- Milton here & there supplies him with an appearance of it -- but he has no native Passion, because he is not a Thinker & has probably weakened his Intellect by the haunting Fear of becoming extravagant. [...]
(pp. 862-3)","","""A Poet's Heart & Intellect should be combined, intimately combined & unified, with the great appearances in Nature -- & not merely held in solution & loose mixture with them, in the shape of formal Similies.""",8194,,"Reading Earl Wasserman, ""The English Romantics: The Grounds of Knowledge,"" Studies in Romanticism 4:1 (Autumn, 1964): 17-34, 21.",2017-01-18 16:34:03 UTC,"","",""