work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:11:17 UTC,"But here, Lorenzo, the delusion lies;
That solar shadow, as it measures life,
It life resembles too: Life speeds away
From point to point, though seeming to stand still.
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth:
Too subtle is the movement to be seen;
Yet soon man's hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time:
As these are useless when the sun is set;
So those, but when more glorious Reason shines.
Reason should judge in all; in Reason's eye,
That sedentary shadow travels hard.
But such our gravitation to the wrong,
So prone our hearts to whisper what we wish,
'Tis later with the wise than he's aware;
A Wilmington goes slower than the sun:
And all mankind mistake their time of day;
E'en age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly sown
In furrow'd brows. So gentle life's descent,
We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain.
We take fair days in Winter for the Spring;
And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft
Man must compute that age he cannot feel,
He scarce believes he's older for his years.
Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in store
One disappointment sure, to crown the rest,--
The disappointment of a promised hour.
(ll. 420-446, p. 62 in CUP edition)",,20407,"","""Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time: / As these are useless when the sun is set; / So those, but when more glorious Reason shines. / Reason should judge in all; in Reason's eye, / That sedentary shadow travels hard.""",Eye,2013-06-05 21:11:17 UTC,Night the Second
7401,"",Reading,2013-06-06 14:17:13 UTC,"Life makes the soul dependent on the dust;
Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres.
Through chinks, styled organs, dim Life peeps at light;
Death bursts the' involving cloud, and all is day;
All eye, all ear, the disembodied power.
Death has feign'd evils Nature shall not feel
Life, ills substantial, Wisdom cannot shun.
Is not the mighty mind, that son of heaven,
By tyrant Life dethroned, imprison'd, pain'd?
By Death enlarged, ennobled, deified?
Death but entombs the body; Life, the soul.
(ll. 448-458, pp. 84-5)",,20429,"","""Through chinks, styled organs, dim Life peeps at light; / Death bursts the' involving cloud, and all is day; / All eye, all ear, the disembodied power.""",Eye,2013-06-06 14:17:35 UTC,Night the Third
7407,"",Reading,2013-06-10 19:29:10 UTC,"Night is fair Virtue's immemorial friend;
The conscious Moon, through every distant age,
Has held a lamp to Wisdom, and let fall
On Contemplation's eye her purging ray.
The famed Athenian, he who woo'd from heaven
Philosophy the fair, to dwell with men,
And form their manners, not inflame their pride,--
While o'er his head, as fearful to molest
His labouring mind, the stars in silence slide,
And seem all gazing on their future guest,
See him soliciting his ardent suit
In private audience: all the live-long night,
Rigid in thought, and motionless, he stands;
Nor quits his theme or posture till the sun
(Rude drunkard! rising rosy from the main)
Disturbs his nobler intellectual beam,
And gives him to the tumult of the world.
Hail, precious moments, stolen from the black waste
Of murder'd Time! auspicious Midnight, hail!
The world excluded, every passion hush'd,
And open'd a calm intercourse with Heaven,
Here the soul sits in council; ponders past,
Predestines future action; sees, not feels,
Tumultuous life, and reasons with the storm;
All her lies answers, and thinks down her charms.
(ll. 177-201, pp. 121-2 in CUP edition)",,20479,"","""Night is fair Virtue's immemorial friend; / The conscious Moon, through every distant age,/ Has held a lamp to Wisdom, and let fall / On Contemplation's eye her purging ray.""",Eye,2013-06-10 19:29:10 UTC,Night the Fifth
7407,"",Reading,2013-06-10 19:53:16 UTC,"But Wisdom smiles when humbled mortals weep.
When Sorrow wounds the breast, as ploughs the glebe,
And hearts obdurate feel her softening shower;
Her seed celestial, then, glad Wisdom sows;
Her golden harvest triumphs in the soil.
If so, Narcissa ! welcome my Relapse:
I'll raise a tax on my calamity,
And reap rich compensation from my pain.
I'll range the plenteous intellectual field;
And gather every thought of sovereign power,
To chase the moral maladies of man;
Thoughts which may bear transplanting to the skies,
Though natives of this coarse penurious soil;
Nor wholly wither there, where seraphs sing,
Refined, exalted, not annull'd, in heaven:
Reason, the sun that gives them birth, the same
In either clime, though more illustrious there.
These, choicely cull'd, and elegantly ranged,
Shall form a garland for Narcissa 's tomb;
And, peradventure, of no fading flowers.
(ll. 274-293, p. 124 in CUP edition)",,20491,"","""I'll range the plenteous intellectual field; / And gather every thought of sovereign power, / To chase the moral maladies of man; / Thoughts which may bear transplanting to the skies, / Though natives of this coarse penurious soil; / Nor wholly wither there, where seraphs sing, / Refined, exalted, not annull'd, in heaven: / Reason, the sun that gives them birth, the same / In either clime, though more illustrious there.""","",2013-06-10 19:53:16 UTC,Night the Fifth