theme,metaphor,work_id,dictionary,provenance,id,created_at,updated_at,reviewed_on,comments,text,context
"","""Soft pity may touch the manly Breast, / And on thy soul mild Nature's stamp imprest""",5098,Impression,"Searching ""soul"" and ""stamp"" in HDIS (Poetry); found again ""breast""",13776,2005-04-08 00:00:00 UTC,2009-09-14 19:39:11 UTC,,"","From the dark Horrors of a prison's cave,
Where all is cheerless as the doleful grave;
The chain'd Andromache pours forth her grief,
And ev'n from Pyrrhus now implores relief.
If e'er soft pity touch'd thy manly Breast,
And on thy soul mild Nature's stamp imprest,
O take compassion on my deep-felt woe,
""'Tis what the happy to th'unhappy owe.""
Too dire alas! to see my Hector dead,
Why dost thou show'r more sorrows on my Head?
Why am I lock'd in this lone Dungeon's cell,
To moan unpity'd? all my suff'rings tell
To heedless walls, that cannot know my pain,
Nor hear Affliction's sorrowing Child complain?
Was it my fault that Hector warr'd with thee?
Why then thy wrath impetuous spent on me?
Yet let me still thy rage unbounded feel,
No more, no longer, for myself I kneel!
--Some friendly Pow'r avert the barb'rous Deed,
For ah I tremble lest my Infant bleed!
Soon as Aurora had unveil'd the Day,
And to my prison sent a hateful ray,
Thy savage Ministers relentless came,
In right of war Astyanax to claim;
At my loud grief no pity they express'd,
But tore the helpless Infant from my Breast.
Yet worse--with impious joy the Ruffians said,
""This night shall find him number'd with the dead.""
My Infant die! forbid it Pow'rs above,
And from Despair call back maternal Love.",""
"","""'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, / Our most important are our earliest years. / The mind impressible and soft, with ease / Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees, / And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue /That education gives her, false or true.""",5559,Impression,HDIS,14848,2003-12-15 00:00:00 UTC,2009-09-14 19:42:05 UTC,,"•A very Lockean position to take on education? INTEREST. Cross-reference: Locke.
•Baird and Ryskamp point to Job 11:12 for ""coltish disposition""","'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears,
Our most important are our earliest years.
The mind impressible and soft, with ease
Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees,
And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue
That education gives her, false or true.
Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;
Man's coltish disposition asks the thong,
And without discipline the favourite child,
Like a neglected forester, runs wild.
But we, as if good qualities would grow
Spontaneous, take but little pains to sow;
We give some Latin and a smatch of Greek,
Teach him to fence and figure twice a week,
And having done, we think, the best we can,
Praise his proficiency and dub him man.
(ll. 353-69, p. 271-2)",""
"","""Man's heart had been impenetrably seal'd / Like theirs that cleave the flood or graze the field, / Had not his Maker's all-bestowing hand / Given him a soul""",5564,"","Searching ""heart"" and ""seal"" in HDIS (Poetry)",14886,2005-04-17 00:00:00 UTC,2009-09-14 19:42:11 UTC,,•A different kind of sealed heart... REVISIT.,"Man's heart had been impenetrably seal'd
Like theirs that cleave the flood or graze the field,
Had not his Maker's all-bestowing hand
Given him a soul, and bade him understand.
The reasoning power vouchsafed of course inferr'd
The power to clothe that reason with his word;
For all is perfect that God works on earth,
And He that gives conception adds the birth.
If this be plain, 'tis plainly understood
What uses of his boon the giver would.
The mind despatch'd upon her busy toil,
Should range where Providence has bless'd the soil;
Visiting every flower with labour meet,
And gathering all her treasures sweet by sweet,
She should imbue the tongue with what she sips,
And shed the balmy blessing on the lips,
That good diffused may more abundant grow,
And speech may praise the power that bids it flow.
Will the sweet warbler of the livelong night
That fills the listening lover with delight,
Forget his harmony, with rapture heard,
To learn the twittering of a meaner bird?
Or make the parrot's mimicry his choice,
That odious libel on a human voice?
No,--Nature, unsophisticate by man,
Starts not aside from her Creator's plan;
The melody that was at first design'd
To cheer the rude forefathers of mankind,
Is note for note deliver'd in our ears,
In the last scene of her six thousand years:
Yet Fashion, leader of a chattering train,
Whom man for his own hurt permits to reign,
Who shifts and changes all things but his shape,
And would degrade her votary to an ape,
The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong
Holds a usurp'd dominion o'er his tongue;
There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace,
Prescribes the theme, the tone, and the grimace,
And when accomplish'd in her wayward school,
Calls gentleman whom she has made a fool.
'Tis an unalterable fix'd decree,
That none could frame or ratify but she,
That heaven and hell, and righteousness and sin,
Snares in his path, and foes that lurk within,
God and his attributes, (a field of day
Where 'tis an angel's happiness to stray,)
Fruits of his love, and wonders of his might,
Be never named in ears esteem'd polite:
That he who dares, when she forbids, be grave,
Shall stand proscribed a madman or a knave,
A close designer not to be believed,
Or, if excused that charge, at least deceived.
Oh folly worthy of the nurse's lap,
Give it the breast, or stop its mouth with pap!
Is it incredible, or can it seem
A dream to any, except those that dream,
That man should love his Maker, and that fire,
Warming his heart, should at his lips transpire?
Know then, and modestly let fall your eyes,
And veil your daring crest that braves the skies,
That air of insolence affronts your God,
You need his pardon, and provoke his rod:
Now, in a posture that becomes you more
Than that heroic strut assumed before,
Know, your arrears with every hour accrue
For mercy shown, while wrath is justly due.
The time is short, and there are souls on earth,
Though future pain may serve for present mirth,
Acquainted with the woes that fear or shame,
By fashion taught, forbade them once to name,
And having felt the pangs you deem a jest,
Have proved them truths too big to be express'd.
Go seek on Revelation's hallow'd ground,
Sure to succeed, the remedy they found:
Touch'd by that power that you have dared to mock,
That makes seas stable, and dissolves the rock,
Your heart shall yield a life-renewing stream,
That fools, as you have done, shall call a dream.",""
"","""The shifts and turns, / The expedients and inventions multiform / To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms / Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,-- / To arrest the fleeting images that fill / The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, / And force them sit, till he has pencil'd off / A faithful likeness of the forms he views.""",5614,Mirror,"Reading; found again searching ""mirror"" and ""mind in HDIS (Poetry); and again in ECCO-TCP",15004,2003-12-17 00:00:00 UTC,2013-08-22 21:11:58 UTC,,"","There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know. The shifts and turns,
The expedients and inventions multiform
To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms
Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,--
To arrest the fleeting images that fill
The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,
And force them sit, till he has pencil'd off
A faithful likeness of the forms he views;
Then to dispose his copies with such art
That each may find its most propitious light,
And shine by situation, hardly less
Than by the labour and the skill it cost,
Are occupations of the poet's mind
So pleasing, and that steal away the thought
With such address, from themes of sad import,
That lost in his own musings, happy man!
He feels the anxieties of life, denied
Their wonted entertainment, all retire.
Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such,
Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.
Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps
Aware of nothing arduous in a task
They never undertook, they little note
His dangers or escapes, and haply find
There least amusement where he found the most.
But is amusement all? studious of song,
And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,
I would not trifle merely, though the world
Be loudest in their praise who do no more.
Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?
It may correct a foible, may chastise
The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,
Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch;
But where are its sublimer trophies found?
What vice has it subdued? whose heart reclaim'd
By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform?
Alas! Leviathan is not so tamed.
Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and stricken hard,
Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,
That fear no discipline of human hands.
(Bk. II, ll. 285-325, pp. 146-7)",""
"","""The stamp of artless piety impress'd / By kind tuition on his yielding breast""",5615,Impression,"Searching ""stamp"" and ""soul"" in HDIS (Poetry)",15060,2005-04-08 00:00:00 UTC,2009-09-14 19:42:40 UTC,,"","In early days the conscience has in most
A quickness, which in later life is lost,
Preserved from guilt by salutary fears,
Or, guilty, soon relenting into tears.
Too careless often as our years proceed,
What friends we sort with, or what books we read,
Our parents yet exert a prudent care
To feed our infant minds with proper fare,
And wisely store the nursery by degrees
With wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease.
Neatly secured from being soiled or torn
Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn,
A book (to please us at a tender age
'Tis call'd a book, though but a single page,)
Presents the prayer the Saviour deign'd to teach,
Which children use, and parsons--when they preach.
Lisping our syllables, we scramble next,
Through moral narrative, or sacred text,
And learn with wonder how this world began,
Who made, who marr'd, and who has ransom'd man:
Points, which unless the Scripture made them plain,
The wisest heads might agitate in vain.
Oh thou, whom borne on fancy's eager wing
Back to the season of life's happy spring,
I pleased remember, and while memory yet
Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget,
Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail,
Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style,
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile,
Witty, and well employed, and like thy Lord
Speaking in parables his slighted word,--
I name thee not, lest so despised a name
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame,
Yet even in transitory life's late day
That mingles all my brown with sober gray,
Revere the man, whose Pilgrim marks the road
And guides the Progress of the soul to God.
'Twere well with most, if books that could engage
Their childhood, pleased them at a riper age;
The man approving what had charm'd the boy,
Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy,
And not with curses on his art who stole
The gem of truth from his unguarded soul.
The stamp of artless piety impress'd
By kind tuition on his yielding breast,
The youth now bearded, and yet pert and raw,
Regards with scorn, though once received with awe,
And warp'd into the labyrinth of lies
That babblers, called philosophers, devise,
Blasphemes his creed as founded on a plan
Replete with dreams, unworthy of a man.
Touch but his nature in its ailing part,
Assert the native evil of his heart,
His pride resents the charge, although the proof
Rise in his forehead, and seem rank enough;
Point to the cure, describe a Saviour's cross
As God's expedient to retrieve his loss,
The young apostate sickens at the view,
And hates it with the malice of a Jew.
(ll. 109-168, pp. 263-5)",""
"",Vile example may be stamped on the breast,5615,"","Searching ""stamp"" and ""breast"" in HDIS (Poetry)",15062,2005-04-11 00:00:00 UTC,2009-09-14 19:42:40 UTC,,•I've included twice: Throne and Kingdom,"But if thy table be indeed unclean,
Foul with excess, and with discourse obscene,
And thou a wretch, whom, following her old plan,
The world accounts an honourable man,
Because forsooth thy courage has been tried,
And stood the test, perhaps on the wrong side,
Though thou hadst never grace enough to prove
That any thing but vice could win thy love;
Or hast thou a polite, card-playing wife,
Chained to the routs that she frequents, for life,
Who, just when industry begins to snore,
Flies, wing'd with joy, to some coach-crowded door,
And thrice in every winter throngs thine own
With half the chariots and sedans in town,
Thyself meanwhile e'en shifting as thou mayst,
Not very sober though, nor very chaste;
Or is thine house, though less superb thy rank,
If not a scene of pleasure, a mere blank,
And thou at best, and in thy soberest mood,
A trifler, vain, and empty of all good?
Though mercy for thyself thou canst have none,
Hear nature plead, show mercy to thy son.
Saved from his home, where every day brings forth
Some mischief fatal to his future worth,
Find him a better in a distant spot,
Within some pious pastor's humble cot,
Where vile example (your's I chiefly mean,
The most seducing and the oftenest seen,)
May never more be stamp'd upon his breast,
Not yet perhaps incurably impress'd.
Where early rest makes early rising sure,
Disease or comes not, or finds easy cure,
Prevented much by diet neat and plain,
Or if it enter, soon starved out again.
Where all the attention of his faithful host
Discreetly limited to two at most,
May raise such fruits as shall reward his care,
And not at last evaporate in air.
Where stillness aiding study, and his mind
Serene, and to his duties much inclined,
Not occupied in day-dreams, as at home,
Of pleasures past or follies yet to come,
His virtuous toil may terminate at last
In settled habit and decided taste.
But whom do I advise? the fashion-led,
The incorrigibly wrong, the deaf, the dead,
Whom care and cool deliberation suit
Not better much than spectacles a brute;
Who if their sons some slight tuition share,
Deem it of no great moment, whose, or where,
Too proud to adopt the thoughts of one unknown,
And much too gay to have any of their own.
But courage, man! methought the Muse replied,
Mankind are various, and the world is wide;
The ostrich, silliest of the feather'd kind,
And form'd of God without a parent's mind,
Commits her eggs, incautious, to the dust,
Forgetful that the foot may crush the trust;
And while on public nurseries they rely,
Not knowing, and too oft not caring why,
Irrational in what they thus prefer,
No few, that would seem wise, resemble her.
But all are not alike. Thy warning voice
May here and there prevent erroneous choice,
And some perhaps, who, busy as they are,
Yet make their progeny their dearest care,
Whose hearts will ache once told what ills may reach
Their offspring left upon so wild a beach,
Will need no stress of argument to enforce
The expedience of a less adventurous course.
The rest will slight thy counsel, or condemn;
But they have human feelings. Turn to them.",""
Inwardness,"""He that attends to his interior self, [...] Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve / No unimportant, though a silent task."" ",5614,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""interior"" in HDIS (Poetry)",15075,2005-08-09 00:00:00 UTC,2009-09-14 19:42:42 UTC,,"","How various his employments, whom the world
Calls idle, and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,
Delightful industry enjoyed at home,
And nature in her cultivated trim
Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad:--
Can he want occupation who has these?
Will he be idle who has much to enjoy?
Me therefore, studious of laborious ease,
Not slothful; happy to deceive the time
Not waste it; and aware that human life
Is but a loan to be repaid with use,
When He shall call his debtors to account,
From whom are all our blessings, business finds
Even here. While sedulous I seek to improve,
At least neglect not, or leave unemploy'd
The mind he gave me; driving it, though slack
Too oft, and much impeded in its work
By causes not to be divulged in vain,
To its just point the service of mankind.
He that attends to his interior self,
That has a heart and keeps it, has a mind
That hungers and supplies it, and who seeks
A social, not a dissipated life,
Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve
No unimportant, though a silent task.
A life all turbulence and noise may seem
To him that leads it, wise and to be praised;
But wisdom is a pearl with most success
Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.
He that is ever occupied in storms,
Or dives not for it, or brings up instead,
Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.
(Bk. III, ll. 352-85, pp. 171-2)",""
"","""Therefore, I have no one notion, / That is not form'd, like the designing / Of the peristaltick motion; / Vermicular; twisting and twining; / Going to work / Just like a bottle-skrew upon a cork.""",6761,"","Reading Jonathan Lamb's Sterne's Fiction and the Double Principle (Cambridge, 1989), 25.",17998,2010-10-09 17:34:46 UTC,2011-09-07 19:36:28 UTC,2011-09-07,"Lamb compares to line of beauty and the 3-D serpentine line that must be imagined by viewer of 2-D drawing.
INTEREST. CRAZY METAPHOR.","This stroke upon my tender brain
Remains, I doubt, impress'd for ever;
For to this day, when with much pain,
I try to think strait on, and clever,
I sidle out again, and strike
Into the beautiful oblique.
Therefore, I have no one notion,
That is not form'd, like the designing
Of the peristaltick motion;
Vermicular; twisting and twining;
Going to work
Just like a bottle-skrew upon a cork.
(pp. 117-8)",Tale II
"","""In every human breast there lives enshrined / Some atom pregnant with the' etherial mind; / Some plastic power, some intellectual ray, / Some genial sunbeam from the source of day; / Something that, warm and restless to aspire, / Works the young heart, and sets the soul on fire, / And bids us all our inborn powers employ / To catch the phantom of ideal joy.""",7984,"",Reading,24295,2014-07-25 18:12:02 UTC,2014-07-25 18:12:02 UTC,,"","In every human breast there lives enshrined
Some atom pregnant with the' etherial mind;
Some plastic power, some intellectual ray,
Some genial sunbeam from the source of day;
Something that, warm and restless to aspire,
Works the young heart, and sets the soul on fire,
And bids us all our inborn powers employ
To catch the phantom of ideal joy.
Were it not so, the soul, all dead and lost,
Like the tall cliff beneath the' impassive frost,
Form'd for no end, and impotent to please,
Would lie inactive on the couch of ease:
And, heedless of proud fame's immortal lay,
Sleep all her dull divinity away.
(p. 153)",""
"","""Tasteless of all that virtue gives to please, / For thought too active, and too mad for ease, / From wish to wish in life's mad vortex toss'd, / For ever struggling, and for ever lost; / He scorns religion, though her seraphs call, / And lives in rapture, or not lives at all.""",7984,"",Reading,24303,2014-07-25 18:21:30 UTC,2014-07-25 18:21:30 UTC,,"","Whoever thinks must see that man was made
To face the storm, not languish in the shade;
Action's his sphere, and,for that sphere design'd,
Eternal pleasures open on his mind.
For this, fair hope leads on the' impassion'd soul
Through life's wild labyrinths to her distant goal;
Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame,
The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame,
Or fondly gives reflection's cooler eye
A glance, an image, of a future sky.
Yet, though kind Heaven points out the' unerring road
That leads through nature up to bliss and God;
Spite of that God, and all his voice divine
Speaks in the heart, or teaches from the shrine,
Man, feebly vain, and impotently wise,
Disdains the manna sent him from the skies;
Tasteless of all that virtue gives to please,
For thought too active, and too mad for ease,
From wish to wish in life's mad vortex toss'd,
For ever struggling, and for ever lost;
He scorns religion, though her seraphs call,
And lives in rapture, or not lives at all.
(pp. 154-155)",""