work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4004,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2006-03-07 00:00:00 UTC,"O that my Mind were cent'red where it ought!
Entirely freed from all distracting Thought:
Vain wandring Thoughts, that crowd within my Breast
Do oft obstruct my Soul from Solid Rest;
And, like to vagrant Clouds, obscure the Mind
Which should to serious watching be inclin'd:
Ah! Rise thou Sun of Righteousness, thy Light
Can soon dispel the Gloominess of Night:
Appear, appear, let thy Victorious Ray,
And long'd-for Presence, still renew the Day;
Whereby my slumb'ring Eyes may walk and see
The Dawning Morning of Felicity,
Still more and more break forth to perfect Day,
Whose Heav'nly Light guides in the Blessed Way,
That leads to thy renowned Holy Hill;
Where true Obedience to thy Sacred Will
Makes glad the Hearts of thy Redeemed Ones,
Who know the Comfort of Adopted Sons;
And can sing Praises to that Gracious Hand,
Which rais'd 'em up, and taught 'em how to stand,
To walk and run the pleasant Paths of Peace,
Rejoycing in true Joys that never cease.",2013-06-04,10387,"","""Vain wandring Thoughts, that crowd within my Breast / Do oft obstruct my Soul from Solid Rest; / like to vagrant Clouds, obscure the Mind / Which should to serious watching be inclin'd.""",Inhabitants,2013-06-04 16:07:02 UTC,I've included the entire poem
4269,Speed of Thought,HDIS (Prose),2004-01-13 00:00:00 UTC,"It cost me much Labour, and many Days, before all these Things were brought to Perfection, and therefore I must go back to some other Things which took up some of my Thoughts. At the same time it happen'd after I had laid my Scheme for the setting up my Tent, and making the Cave, that a Storm of Rain falling from a thick dark Cloud, a sudden Flash of Lightning happen'd, and after that a great Clap of Thunder, as is naturally the Effect of it; I was not so much surpriz'd with the Lightning, as I was with a Thought which darted into my Mind as swift as the Lightning it self: O my Powder! my very Heart sunk within me, when I thought, that at one Blast all my Powder might be destroy'd; on which, not my Defence only, but the providing me Food, as I thought, entirely depended; I was nothing near so anxious about my own Danger, tho' had the Powder took fire, I had never known who had hurt me.
(pp. 69-70)",2011-06-07,11121,"","""I was not so much surpriz'd with the Lightning, as I was with a Thought which darted into my Mind as swift as the Lightning it self: O my Powder!""","",2011-06-07 18:05:58 UTC,""
4532,"",HDIS (Poetry),2004-08-26 00:00:00 UTC," My frame of nature is a ruffled sea,
And my disease the tempest. Nature feels
A strange commotion to her inmost centre;
The throne of reason shakes. 'Be still, my thoughts;
'Peace and be still.' In vain my reason gives
The peaceful word, my spirit strives in vain
To calm the tumult and command my thoughts.
This flesh, this circling blood, these brutal powers,
Made to obey, turn rebels to the mind,
Nor hear its laws. The engine rules the man.
Unhappy change! When nature's meaner springs,
Fir'd to impetuous ferments, break all order;
When little restless atoms rise and reign
Tyrants in sov'reign uproar, and impose
Ideas on the mind; confus'd ideas
Of non-existents and impossibles,
Who can describe them? Fragments of old dreams,
Borrow'd from midnight, torn from fairy fields
And fairy skies, and regions of the dead,
Abrupt, ill-sorted! O 'tis all confusion!
If I but close my eyes, strange images
In thousand forms and thousand colours rise,
Stars, rainbows, moons, green dragons, bears and ghosts,
An endless medley rush upon the stage,
And dance and riot wild in reason's court
Above control. I'm in a raging storm,
Where seas and skies are blended, while my soul
Like some light worthless chip of floating cork
Is tost from wave to wave: Now overwhelm'd
With breaking floods, I drown, and seem to lose
All being: Now high-mounted on the ridge
Of a tall foaming surge, I'm all at once
Caught up into the storm, and ride the wind,
The whistling wind; unmanageable steed,
And feeble rider! Hurried many a league
Over the rising hills of roaring brine,
Thro' airy wilds unknown, with dreadful speed
And infinite surprise; till some few minutes
Have spent the blast, and then perhaps I drop
Near to the peaceful coast; some friendly billow
Lodges me on the beach, and I find rest:
Short rest I find; for the next rolling wave
Snatches me back again; then ebbing far
Sets me adrift, and I am borne off to sea,
Helpless, amidst the bluster of the winds,
Beyond the ken of shore.
",2011-09-07,11924,"•I've included thrice: Tempest, Waves, Cork","""I'm in a raging storm, / Where seas and skies are blended, while my soul / Like some light worthless chip of floating cork / Is tost from wave to wave.""","",2011-09-07 19:34:50 UTC,""
6971,"",Reading,2011-06-23 19:02:41 UTC,"Such sure Rewards the happy Choice attend
Form'd on our Nature's Origin and End.
Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came
That Ray divine that lights the human Frame:
Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth,
It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth:
Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence
The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense:
'Tis Life's great task their Influence to controul,
And keep the native Splendor of the Soul:
From false Desires which wild Opinion frames,
From raging Folly's inconsistent Schemes,
To guard it safe by those unerring Laws,
That re-unite it to its first Great Cause.
To this bright Mark may all thy Actions tend,
And Heav'n succeed the Wishes of a Friend,
Whose faithful Love directs its tender Cares
Beyond the Flight of momentary Years:
Beyond the Grave, where vulgar Passions end,
To future Worlds it's nobler Views extend,
Which soon each Imperfection must remove.
And ev'ry Charm of Friendship shall improve.
'Till then, the Muse essays the tuneful Art,
To fix her moral Lesson on thy Heart,
Illume thy Soul with Virtue's brightest Flame,
And point it to that Heav'n from whence it came.
(ll. 39-64, pp. 20-1)",2013-06-04,18792,"","""Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Life's great task their Influence to controul, / And keep the native Splendor of the Soul.""","",2013-06-04 14:59:04 UTC,""
7399,"",Reading,2013-06-05 19:41:01 UTC,"Yet man (fool man!) here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh;
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by Heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there
Where seraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow
In His full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire!
And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
(ll. 135-154, pp. 40-1 in CUP edition)",,20389,"","""A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.""","",2013-06-05 19:41:01 UTC,Night the First
7550,Stream of Consciousness,C-H Lion,2013-07-18 21:25:46 UTC,"LUCILLA.
Trust not to that;
Rage is the shortest Passion of our Souls,
Like narrow Brooks that rise with sudden Show'rs,
It swells in haste, and falls again as soon;
Still as it ebbs the softer Thoughts flow in,
And the Deceiver Love supplies its place.
(II.i, p. 14)",,21867,"","""Trust not to that; / Rage is the shortest Passion of our Souls, / Like narrow Brooks that rise with sudden Show'rs, / It swells in haste, and falls again as soon; / Still as it ebbs the softer Thoughts flow in, / And the Deceiver Love supplies its place.""","",2013-07-18 21:25:46 UTC,"Act II, scene i"
4167,"",Reading,2013-08-07 16:54:23 UTC,"What high Perfections grace the human Mind,
In Flesh imprison'd, and to Earth confin'd!
What Vigour has she? What a piercing Sight?
Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light?
She moves unweary'd, as the active Fire,
And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire.
By Day her Thoughts in never-ceasing Streams
Flow clear, by Night they strive in troubled Dreams.
She draws ten thousand Landschapes in the Brain,
Dresses of airy Forms an endless Train,
Which all her Intellectual Scenes prepare,
Enter by turns the Stage, and disappear.
To the remoter Regions of the Sky
Her swift-wing'd Thought can in a Moment fly;
Climb to the Heights of Heav'n, to be employ'd
In viewing thence th'Interminable Void.
Can look beyond the Stream of Time, to see
The stagnant Ocean of Eternity.
Thoughts in an Instant thro' the Zodiack run,
A Year's long Journey for the lab'ring Sun:
Then down they shoot, as swift as darting Light,
Nor can opposing Clouds retard their Flight:
Thro' Subterranean Vaults with Ease they sweep,
And search the hidden Wonders of the Deep.
(VII, ll. 204-227, pp. 323-4)",,22106,"","""Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light? / She [the mind] moves unweary'd, as the active Fire, / And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire.""","",2013-08-07 16:54:23 UTC,Book VII
7593,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-08-16 17:51:20 UTC,"The Soul of the Murther'd Person seeks no Revenge; all that Part is swallowed up in the Wonders of the eternal State, and Vengeance entirely resign'd to him to whom it belongs; but the Soul of the Murtherer is like the Ocean in a Tempest, he is in continual Motion, restless and raging; and the Guilt of the Fact, like the Winds to the Sea, lies on his Mind as a constant Pressure, and adds to that, (still like the Seas) 'tis hurry'd about by its own Weight, rolling to and again, Motion encreasing Motion, 'till it becomes a meer Mass of Horrour and Confusion.
(p. 104)",,22211,"","""The Soul of the Murther'd Person seeks no Revenge; all that Part is swallowed up in the Wonders of the eternal State, and Vengeance entirely resign'd to him to whom it belongs; but the Soul of the Murtherer is like the Ocean in a Tempest, he is in continual Motion, restless and raging; and the Guilt of the Fact, like the Winds to the Sea, lies on his Mind as a constant Pressure, and adds to that, (still like the Seas) 'tis hurry'd about by its own Weight, rolling to and again, Motion encreasing Motion, 'till it becomes a meer Mass of Horrour and Confusion.""","",2013-08-16 17:51:20 UTC,Chapter VII
4906,"",Reading,2014-06-11 21:19:22 UTC,"Thus have I vainly strove, with strokes too faint,
Love, in his known, and outward marks, to paint;
Unmindful, that, of old, they veil'd his face,
And wisely cover'd, what they could not trace.
Lovely creator of my soul's soft pain,
Pity the pencil, that aspir'd in vain:
Vers'd in love's pangs, and taught his pow'r, by you,
Skill'd, I presum'd, that what I felt, I drew;
But I have err'd; and, with delirious aim,
Would picture motion, and imprison flame.
He, who can light'ning's flash, to colours, bind,
May paint love's influence, on the burning mind.
Then, when we master him, and give him law,
Then may we chain him, and his image draw:
But who would bind this god, must, captive take,
A power, which all mankind can captive make;
I am too weak of heart; yet, I can tell
Those, who dare seize him, where he loves to dwell.
I see him now; in his own heav'n, he lies,
Close at sweet ambush, in Miranda 's eyes.
(pp. 171-190; cf. pp. 203-4)",,23955,"","""But I have err'd; and, with delirious aim, / Would picture motion, and imprison flame. / He, who can light'ning's flash, to colours, bind, / May paint love's influence, on the burning mind.""","",2014-06-11 21:19:22 UTC,""
7984,"",Reading,2014-07-25 18:13:56 UTC,"And yet, let but a zephyr's breath begin
To stir the latent excellence within--
Waked in that moment's elemental strife,
Impassion'd genius feels the breath of life;
The' expanding heart delights to leap and glow,
The pulse to kindle, and the tear to flow:
Strong and more strong the light celestial shines,
Each thought ennobles, and each sense refines,
Till all the soul, full opening to the flame,
Exalts to virtue what she felt for fame.
Hence, just as nature points the kindred fire,
One plies the pencil, one awakes the lyre;
This, with an Halley's luxury of soul,
Calls the wild needle back upon the pole,
Maps half the winds, and gives the sail to fly
In every ocean of the arctic sky;
While he whose vast capacious mind explores
All nature's scenes, and nature's God adores,
Skill'd in each drug the varying world provides,
All earth embosoms, and all ocean hides;
Expels, like Heberden, the young disease,
And softens anguish to the smile of ease.
(pp. 153-154)",,24297,"","""And yet, let but a zephyr's breath begin/ To stir the latent excellence within-- / Waked in that moment's elemental strife, / Impassion'd genius feels the breath of life; / The' expanding heart delights to leap and glow, / The pulse to kindle, and the tear to flow.""","",2014-07-25 18:13:56 UTC,""