work_id,theme,id,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,created_at,context,comments,text,reviewed_on,provenance
5681,"",19908,"""Since there is no convexity in MIND, / Why are thy genial beams to parts confined?""",Optics,2012-08-13 21:27:04 UTC,2012-08-13 21:27:04 UTC,"","","If heaven has into being deign'd to call
Thy light, O LIBERTY! to shine on all;
Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray
To earth distribute only partial day?
Since no resisting cause from spirit flows
Thy penetrating essence to opose;
No obstacles by Nature's hand imprest,
Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
Nor motion's laws can speed thy active course,
Nor strong repulsion's pow'rs obstruct thy force;
Since there is no convexity in MIND,
Why are thy genial beams to parts confin'd?
While the chill North with thy bright ray is blest,
Why should fell darkness half the South invest?
Was it decreed, fair Freedom! at thy birth,
That thou shou'd'st ne'er irradiate all the earth?
While Britain basks in thy full blaze of light,
Why lies sad Afric quench'd in total night?
(ll. 1-18, p. 101 in Wood)",,Reading
7590,"",22177,"""Why drive him from my presence? he might now / Raise my sunk soul, and my benighted mind / Enlighten with religion's cheering ray.""","",2013-08-16 04:15:17 UTC,2013-08-16 04:15:17 UTC,David and Goliath: A Sacred Drama,"","
""Why drive him from my presence? he might now / Raise my sunk soul, and my benighted mind / Enlighten with religion's cheering ray.""
SAUL, rising from his couch.
OH! that I knew the black and midnight arts
Of wizard sorcery! that I cou'd call
The slumb'ring spirit from the shades of hell!
Or, like Chaldean sages, cou'd foreknow
Th' event of things unacted! I might then
Anticipate my fortune. How I'm fall'n!
The sport of vain chimeras, the weak slave
Of fear, and sickly fancy; coveting
To know the arts which foul diviners use.
Thick blood, and moping melancholy, lead
To baleful Superstition, that fell fiend
Whose with'ring charms blast the fair bloom of virtue.
Why did my wounded pride with scorn reject
The wholesome truths which holy Samuel told me?
Why drive him from my presence? he might now
Raise my sunk soul, and my benighted mind
Enlighten with religion's cheering ray.
He dared to menace me with loss of empire,
And I, for that bold honesty, dismiss'd him.
""Another shall possess thy throne, he cry'd,
""A stranger!"" This unwelcome prophecy
Has lin'd my crown, and strew'd my couch with thorns.
Each ray of op'ning merit I discern
In friend or foe, distracts my troubled soul,
Lest he shou'd prove my rival. But this morn,
Ev'n my young champion, lovely as he look'd
in blooming valour, struck me to the soul
With jealousy's barb'd dart. O jealousy!
Thou ugliest fiend of hell! thy deadly venom
Preys on my vitals, turns the healthful hue
Of my fresh cheek to haggard sallowness;
And drinks my spirit up!
(Part V, pp. 111-3)",,Searching in ECCO-TCP
7590,"",22179,"""Proceed, proceed, thrice venerable sage! / Enlighten my dark mind with this new ray, / This dawning of salvation!""","",2013-08-16 04:17:44 UTC,2013-08-16 04:17:44 UTC,Daniel: A Sacred Drama,"","
ARASPES.
Proceed, proceed, thrice venerable sage!
Enlighten my dark mind with this new ray,
This dawning of salvation! Tell me more
Of this expected King! this Prince of peace!
This Promise of the nations! this great Hope
Of anxious Israƫl! This mighty Prophet!
(Part II, p. 201)",,Searching in ECCO-TCP
7734,"",23007,"""The philosophical doctrine of the slow recession of bodies from the sun, is a lively image of the reluctance with which we first abandon the light of virtue.""","",2013-10-16 16:51:53 UTC,2013-10-16 16:51:53 UTC,On Dissipation,"","The philosophical doctrine of the slow recession of bodies from the sun, is a lively image of the reluctance with which we first abandon the light of virtue. The beginning of folly, and the first entrance on a dissipated life cost some pangs to a well disposed heart; but it is surprising to she how soon the progress ceases to be impeded by reflection, or slackened by remorse. For it is in moral as in natural things, the motion in minds as well as bodies is accelerated by a nearer approach to the centre to which they are tending. If we recede slowly at first setting out, we advance rapidly in our future course; and to have begun to be wrong, is already to have made a great progress.
(pp. 26-7)",,ECCO-TCP
7738,"",23019,"""If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benighted mind in a state of cold and comfortless inanity.""","",2013-10-16 17:10:04 UTC,2013-10-16 17:10:04 UTC,Thoughts on the Cultivation of the Heart and Temper in the Education of Daughters,"","To win the passions, therefore, over to the cause of virtue, answers a much nobler end than their extinction would possibly do, even if that could be effected. But it is their nature never to observe a neutrality; they are either rebels or auxiliaries, and an enemy subdued is an ally obtained.
If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benighted mind in a state of cold and comfortless inanity.
(pp. 155-6)",,ECCO-TCP
7739,"",23030,"""When a nation begins to emerge from a state of mental darkness, and to strike out the first rudiments of improvement, it chalks out a few strong but incorrect sketches, gives the rude out-lines of general art, and leaves the filling up to the leisure of happier days, and the refinement of more enlightened times.""","",2013-10-16 17:23:28 UTC,2013-10-16 17:23:28 UTC,"","","When a nation begins to emerge from a state of mental darkness, and to strike out the first rudiments of improvement, it chalks out a few strong but incorrect sketches, gives the rude out-lines of general art, and leaves the filling up to the leisure of happier days, and the refinement of more enlightened times. Their drawing is a rude Sbozzo, and their poetry wild minstrelsy.
(pp. 207-8)",,ECCO-TCP