work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3248,"","Searching ""judge within"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2004-08-26 00:00:00 UTC,"Hear me, O youths! whose now impending fates
The extreme of joy or misery awaits,
Or still to mourn your unavailing vows,
Or victor in the strife enjoy the spouse.
Then who shall first begin the important lay
Let lots determine, and those lots obey.
This coin, ordained through Scotia's realm to pass,
The monarch's face refulgent on the brass;
Fair, on the side opposed, the thistle rears
Its wand'ring foliage and its bristly spears.
This, from my hand flung upwards in the sky,
In countless circles whirls its orb on high;
If, when descended on the level ground,
The monarch's awful visage upward's found,
Then thou, O Fiddler, shall thy skill employ
The first, to try the song of grief or joy.
If, undeprised upon the blushing green
Its chance directs, the thistle's front is seen,
The Piper first the sweet melodious strain
Shall urge, and finish or increase his pain.
But thou, O Elspet, fair beyond the rest,
Whose fatal beauty breeds the dire contest,
O heedful of advice, attentive hear
My faithful counsels with no careless ear.
Fair (though) thou art, yet fairer have there been,
Such as of old these aged orbs have seen.
Lives there a maiden now that can compare
With Agnew's downy breasts and amber hair?
O, when shall I again the match behold
Of sprightly Henny, and her cheeks of gold!
Or her, adorn'd with every blushing grace,
Sweet Marion, comely as the Gentle's race!
If these in younger years I could engage,
Then blush not thou to hear my words of age.
View both the combatants with equal eyes,
Thyself at once the judge, at once the prize.
O dread to load thy tender soul with sin,
For love, I fear, corrupts the judge within.
For if misjudging, thou award'st the day
To him inferior in the sweet essay,
Each tongue shall rank thee with the worst of names,
Deep pierces scandal when 'tis truth that blames.
The perjury shall every age prolong,
To fright the changeful mind from doing wrong.
But if thy sentence speak an upright heart,
Where pride and female error has no part,
Thy name remembered in the feasting days,
The youths shall chant sweet ballads in thy praise,
The lover shall his faithless fair upbraid,
And quote the example of the Piper's Maid.
Then Elspet, Maid of Gallowshiels, take heed,
For infamy or fame attends thy deed.",,8502,"•The poem is incomplete. On the Electric Scotland website the following is reported:
There exists in manuscript another fragmentary poem by Mr Hamilton, called the ""Maid of Gallowshiels."" It is an epic of the heroic-comic kind, intended to celebrate the contest between a piper and a fiddler for the fair Maid of Gallowshiels. Mr Hamilton had evidently designed to extend it to twelve books, but has only completed the first and a portion of the second.","""For love, I fear, corrupts the judge within.""",Court,2013-06-12 19:05:37 UTC,""
6317,"","Searching ""conque"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-02-06 00:00:00 UTC,"I love, nor longer will conceal
A flame which truth and honour bid reveal:
Nor duty further binds my tongue, since here
I now no rival but a brother fear.
Nor is this flame the passion of a day,
A sudden blaze that hastens to decay;
Long in my breast I pent the rising groan,
Told it in secret to my heart alone.
O, could I, faithful to its rage, express
Its first uneasiness, my last distress!
But lose not now the moments to disclose
The long, long story of my amorous woes.--
Suffice it thee to know, that ere my sire
Beheld this beauteous object of desire,
I saw and felt the charmer in my heart,
And holy passion dignified the dart.
My father saw her too, nor sought to move
With vows that she and virtue could approve;
Haughty of sovereign rule, he hoped to find
An easy conquest o'er a woman's mind:
But when he found, in honour resolute,
She scorned indignant his imperious suit,
'Twas then he sent, in Hymen's sacred name,
His diadem, the pledge of purer flame.
Judge then, my friend! what agonizing smart
Tore up my senses, and transfixed my heart,
When first from fame the dreadful tale I heard,
The fair Monimia to his throne preferred,
And that Arbates with his beauteous prey
Shaped for Nymphea's walls the destined way.
",,16715,"","One may hope ""to find / An easy conquest o'er a woman's mind""","",2009-09-14 19:47:46 UTC,"Act I, Scene i"
6318,"","Searching ""conque"" and ""heart"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-02-10 00:00:00 UTC,"Cease, plaintive sounds, your task is done,
That anxious tender air
Proves o'er her heart the conquest won,
I see you melting there.
",,16716,"","An ""anxious tender air / Proves o'er her heart the conquest won""","",2009-09-14 19:47:46 UTC,""
6319,"","Searching ""conque"" and ""heart"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-02-10 00:00:00 UTC,"While crown'd with radiant charms divine,
Unnumber'd beauties round thee shine,
When Erskine leads her happy man,
And Johnstoun shakes the fluttering fan;
When beauteous Pringle smiles confest,
And gently heaves her swelling breast,
Her raptur'd partner still at gaze,
Pursuing through each winding maze;
Say, youth, and can'st thou keep secure
Thy heart from conquering beauty's power?
Or hast thou not, how soon! betray'd
The too believing country maid?
Whose young and inexperienc'd years
From thee no evil purpose fears;
But yielding to love's gentle sway,
Knows not that lovers can betray,
How shall she curse deceiving men?
How shall she e'er believe again?
",,16717,"","""Say, youth, and can'st thou keep secure / Thy heart from conquering beauty's power?""","",2009-09-14 19:47:46 UTC,""
6321,"","Searching ""fancy"" and ""coin"" in HDIS (Poetry); found again ""mint""",2005-04-14 00:00:00 UTC,"For when Aurora weeps the balmy dew,
(And dreams, as rev'rend dreamers tell, are true)
Sir George my shoulder slaps, just in the time
When some rebellious word consents to rhyme:
Sudden my verses take the rude alarm,
New-coin'd, and from the mint of fancy warm:
I start, I stare, I question with my eyes;
At once the whole poetic vision flies.
Up, up, exclaims the Knight; the season fair;
See how serene the sky, how calm the air;
Hark! from the hills the cheerful horns rebound,
And echo propagates the jovial sound;
The certain hound in thought his prey pursues,
The scent lies warm, and loads the tainted dews,
I quit my couch, and cheerfully obey,
Content to let the younker have his way;
I mount my courser, fleeter than the wind,
And leave the rage of poetry behind.
But when, the day in healthful labour lost,
We eat our supper earn'd at common cost;
When each frank tongue speaks out without control,
And the free heart expatiates o'er the bowl;
Though all love prose, my poetry finds grace,
And, pleased, I chant the glories of the chace.
(p. 160)",2011-07-14,16719,"•I've included twice: Mint and Coin
","""Sudden my verses take the rude alarm, / New-coin'd, and from the mint of fancy warm""",Coinage,2011-07-14 21:02:34 UTC,""
6323,"","Searching ""soul"" and ""cell"" in HDIS (Poetry); found again ""fancy""",2005-08-17 00:00:00 UTC,"Monimia still! here once again!
O fatal name! O dubious strain!
Say, heaven-born virtue, power divine,
Are all these various movements thine?
Was it thy triumphs, sole inspired
My soul, to holy transports fired?
Or say, do springs less sacred move?
Ah! much, I fear, 'tis human love.
Alas! the noble strife is o'er,
The blissful visions charm no more;
Far off the glorious rapture flown,
Monimia rages here alone.
In vain, love's fugitive, I try
From the commanding power to fly;
Though grace was dawning on my soul,
Possessed by heaven sincere and whole,
Yet still in fancy's painted cells
The soul-inflaming image dwells.
Why didst thou, cruel love, again
Thus drag me back to earth and pain?
Well hoped I, love, thou would'st retire
Before the blest Jessean lyre.
Devotion's harp would charm to rest
The evil spirit in my breast;
But the deaf adder fell disdains,
Unlist'ning to the chanter's strains.",,16722,•I've included twice: Cell and Dwelling,"""Yet still in fancy's painted cells / The soul-inflaming image dwells.""",Rooms,2009-09-14 19:47:47 UTC,""
6327,"","Searching ""idea"" and ""crowd"" in HDIS (Poetry); found again ""brain""",2006-03-08 00:00:00 UTC,"[...]
What grand ideas crowd my brain!
What images! a lofty train
In beauteous order spring:
As the keen store of feathered fates
Within the braided quiver waits,
Impatient for the wing:
See, see, they mount! The sacred few
Endued with piercing flight,
Alone through darling fields pursue
The ærial regions bright.
This nature gives, her chiefest boast;
But when the bright ideas fly,
Far soaring from the vulgar eye,
To vulgar eyes are lost.
Where nature sows her genial seeds,
A liberal harvest straight succeeds,
Fair in the human soil;
While art, with hard laborious pains,
Creeps on unseen, nor much attains,
By slow progressive toil.
Resembling this, the feeble crow,
Amid the vulgar winged crowd,
Hides in the darkening copse below,
Vain, strutting, garrulous, and loud:
While genius mounts the ethereal height,
As the imperial bird of Jove
On sounding pinions soars above,
And dares the majesty of light.
Then fit an arrow to the tuneful string,
O thou, my genius! warm with sacred flame;
Fly swift, ethereal shaft! and wing
The godlike Theron unto fame.
I solemn swear, and holy truth attest,
That sole inspires the tuneful breast,
That, never since the immortal sun
His radiant journey first begun,
To none the gods did e'er impart
A more exalted mind, or wide-diffusive heart.
Fly, Envy, hence, that durst invade
Such glories, with injurious shade;
Still, with superior lustre bright,
His virtues shine, in number more
Than are the radiant fires of night,
Or sands that spread along the sea-surrounding shore.",,16728,•I've included twice: Crowd and Train,"""What grand ideas crowd my brain! / What images! a lofty train / In beauteous order spring""",Inhabitants,2009-09-14 19:47:49 UTC,Pindar's Olympia
6323,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""chains"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2011-07-14 20:30:15 UTC,"Ah! haunting spirit, art thou there?
Forbidden in these walks to appear.
I thought, O love! thou would'st disdain
To mix with wisdom's black, staid train;
But when my curious searching look
A nice survey of nature took,
Well pleased, the matron set to show
Her mistress' work on earth below.
Then fruitless knowledge turn aside;
What other art remains untried
This load of anguish to remove,
And heal the cruel wounds of love?
To friendship's sacred force apply,
That source of tenderness and joy--
A joy no anxious fears profane--
A tenderness that feels no pain:
Friendships shall all these ills appease,
And give the tortured mourner ease.
The indissoluble tie that binds,
In equal chains, two sister minds;
Not such as servile interests choose,
From partial ends and sordid views;
Nor when the midnight banquet fires
The choice of wine-inflamed desires,
When the short fellowships proceed
From casual mirth and wicked deed,
Till the next morn estranges quite
The partners of one guilty night;
But such as judgment long has weighed,
And years of faithfulness have tried;
Whose tender mind is framed to share
The equal portion of my care;
Whose thoughts my happiness employs
Sincere, who triumphs in my joys;
With whom in raptures I may stray,
Through study's long and pathless way;
Obscurely blest in joys--alone--
To the excluded world unknown.
Forsook, the weak fantastic train
Of flattery, mirth, all false and vain;
On whose soft and gentle breast
My weary soul may take her rest,
While the still tender look and kind,
Fair springing from the spotless mind,
My perfected delights insure
To last immortal, free and pure.
Grant, heaven--if heaven means bliss for me--
Monimia such, and long may be!",,18873,"","Friendship is ""The indissoluble tie that binds, / In equal chains, two sister minds.""",Fetters,2011-07-14 20:30:15 UTC,""
6321,"","Searching ""chain"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2011-07-14 20:56:40 UTC,"There is a certain pleasing force that binds,
Faster than chains do slaves, two willing minds.
Tempers oppos'd each may itself control,
And melt two varying natures in one soul.
This made two brothers different humours hit,
Tho' one had probity, and one had wit.
Of sober manners this, and plain good sense,
Avoided cards, wine, company, expense:
Safe from the tempting fatal sex withdrew,
Nor made advances farther than a bow.
A diff'rent train of life his twin pursues;
Lov'd pictures, books, (nay authors write) the stews,
A mistress, op'ra, play, each darling theme;
To scribble, above all, his joy supreme.
Must these two brothers always meet to scold,
Or quarrel, like to Jove's fam'd twins of old?
Each yielding, mutual, could each other please,
And drew life's yoke with tolerable ease:
This, thinking mirth not always in the wrong,
Would sometimes condescend to hear a song;
And that, fatigu'd with his exalted fits,
His beauties, gewgaws, whirlegigs and wits,
Would leave them all, far happier to regale
With prose and friendship o'er a pot of ale.
Then to thy friend's opinion sometimes yield,
And seem to lose, although thou gain'st the field;
Nor, proud that thy superior sense be shown,
Rail at his studies, and extol your own.
(pp. 159-60)",,18874,"","""There is a certain pleasing force that binds, / Faster than chains do slaves, two willing minds.""",Fetters,2011-07-14 21:01:13 UTC,""