work_id,theme,id,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,created_at,context,comments,text,reviewed_on,provenance
5183,"",13955,"""Constant attention wears the active mind, / Blots out our powers, and leaves a blank behind""","",2009-09-14 19:39:35 UTC,2005-03-02 00:00:00 UTC,Final Stanza,"","Sure 'tis a curse which angry fates impose,
To mortify man's arrogance, that those
Who're fashion'd of some better sort of clay,
Much sooner than the common herd decay.
What bitter pangs must humbled Genius feel,
In their last hours, to view a Swift and Steele!
How must ill-boding horrors fill her breast
When she beholds men mark'd above the rest
For qualities most dear, plunged from that height,
And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night!
Are men, indeed, such things? and are the best
More subject to this evil than the rest,
To drivel out whole years of idiot breath,
And sit the monuments of living death!
O, galling circumstance to human pride!
Abasing thought! but not to be denied.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought.
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out our powers, and leaves a blank behind.
But let not youth, to insolence allied,
In heat of blood, in full career of pride,
Possess'd of genius, with unhallow'd rage
Mock the infirmities of reverend age:
The greatest genius to this fate may bow;
Reynolds, in time, may be like Hogarth now.
(pp. 250-1, ll. 629-654)",,"Searching ""blank"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)"
5192,"",22377,"""Explore the dark recesses of the mind, / In the Soul's honest volume read mankind, / And own, in wise and simple, great and small, / The same grand leading Principle in All.""",Writing,2013-08-18 17:41:51 UTC,2013-08-18 17:41:51 UTC,"","","Explore the dark recesses of the mind,
In the Soul's honest volume read mankind,
And own, in wise and simple, great and small,
The same grand leading Principle in All.
Whate'er we talk of wisdom to the wise,
Of goodness to the good, of public ties
Which to our country link, of private bands
Which claim most dear attention at our hands,
For Parent and for Child, for Wife and Friend,
Our first great Mover, and our last great End,
Is One, and, by whatever name we call
The ruling Tyrant, SELF is All in All.
This, which unwilling Faction shall admit,
Guided in diff'rent ways a BUTE and PITT,
Made Tyrants break, made Kings observe the law,
And gave the world a STUART and NASSAU.
(p. 9)",,ECCO-TCP
5192,"",22381,"""No--'tis the tale which angry Conscience tells, / When She with more than tragic horror swells / Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true, / She brings bad actions forth into review; / And, like the dread hand-writing on the wall, / Bids late Remorse awake at Reason's call, / Arm'd at all points bids Scorpion Vengeance pass, / And to the mind holds up Reflexion's glass, / The mind, which starting, heaves the heart-felt groan, / And hates that form She knows to be her own.""",Mirror,2013-08-22 16:53:21 UTC,2013-08-18 17:51:58 UTC,"","","C. Ah! what, my Lord, hath private life to do
With things of public Nature? why to view
Would You thus cruelly those scenes unfold,
Which, without pain and horror to behold,
Must speak me something more, or less than man;
Which Friends may pardon, but I never can?
Look back! a Thought which borders on despair,
Which human Nature must, yet cannot bear.
'Tis not the babbling of a busy world,
Where Praise and Censure are at random hurl'd,
Which can the meanest of my thoughts controul,
Or shake one settled purpose of my Soul.
Free and at large might their wild curses roam,
If All, if All alas! were well at home.
No--'tis the tale which angry Conscience tells,
When She with more than tragic horror swells
Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true,
She brings bad actions forth into review;
And, like the dread hand-writing on the wall,
Bids late Remorse awake at Reason's call,
Arm'd at all points bids Scorpion Vengeance pass,
And to the mind holds up Reflexion's glass,
The mind, which starting, heaves the heart-felt groan,
And hates that form She knows to be her own.
(pp. 11-12)",,ECCO-TCP