work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7399,"",Reading,2013-06-05 19:37:37 UTC,"'Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof:
While o'er my limbs Sleep's soft dominion spread,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods; or, down the craggy steep
Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool;
Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;
Active, aƫrial, towering, unconfined,
Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall.
E'en silent Night proclaims my soul immortal:
E'en silent Night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal, Heaven husbands all events;
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
(ll. 91-106, p. 39 in CUP edition)",,20387,"","""While o'er my limbs Sleep's soft dominion spread, / What though my soul fantastic measures trod / O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom / Of pathless woods; or, down the craggy steep / Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; / Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds, / With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?""",Inhabitants,2013-06-05 19:37:37 UTC,Night the First
7399,"",Reading,2013-06-05 19:49:58 UTC,"A part how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,
Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands;
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death!
Such is earth's melancholy map! But, far
More sad! this earth is a true map of man.
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To Woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,
And threatening fate wide opens to devour.
(ll. 285-295, p. 44 in CUP edition)",,20394,"","""So bounded are its haughty lord's delights / To Woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss, / Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite, / Ravenous calamities our vitals seize, / And threatening fate wide opens to devour.""",Animals and Empire,2013-06-05 19:49:58 UTC,Night the First
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 20:55:18 UTC,"Ah! how unjust to Nature and himself
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
Like children babbling nonsense in their sports,
We censure Nature for a span too short;
That span too short we tax as tedious too;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lash the lingering moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves.
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer,
(For Nature's voice unstifled would recall,)
Drives headlong towards the precipice of death;
Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful made.
O what a riddle of absurdity!
Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot-wheels;
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain,
It makes us wander; wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, Thought. As Atlas groan'd
The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
We cry for mercy to the next amusement;
The next amusement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! Prisons hardly frown,
From hateful time if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel: years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd.
To man's false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his age.
Behold him, when pass'd by; what then is seen
But his broad pinions, swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast, cry out on his career.
(ll. 112-144, p. 54 in CUP edition)",,20398,"","""It makes us wander; wander earth around / To fly that tyrant, Thought.""","",2013-06-05 20:55:18 UTC,Night the Second
7401,"",Reading,2013-06-06 14:09:46 UTC,"Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge;
Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign,
That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy!
Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far,
And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast:
Auspicious era! golden days, begin!
The thought of death shall, like a god, inspire.
And why not think on death? Is life the theme
Of every thought, and wish of every hour,
And song of every joy? Surprising truth!
The beaten spaniel's fondness not so strange.
To wave the numerous ills that seize on life
As their own property, their lawful prey;
Ere man has measured half his weary stage,
His luxuries have left him no reserve,
No maiden relishes, unbroach'd delights;
On cold-served repetitions he subsists,
And in the tasteless present chews the past;
Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down.
Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years
Have disinherited his future hours,
Which starve on orts, and glean their former field.
(ll. 303-324, p. 81)",,20424,"","""Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge; / Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign, / That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy!""",Empire,2013-06-06 14:09:46 UTC,Night the Third
7401,"",Reading,2013-06-06 14:11:08 UTC,"Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge;
Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign,
That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy!
Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far,
And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast:
Auspicious era! golden days, begin!
The thought of death shall, like a god, inspire.
And why not think on death? Is life the theme
Of every thought, and wish of every hour,
And song of every joy? Surprising truth!
The beaten spaniel's fondness not so strange.
To wave the numerous ills that seize on life
As their own property, their lawful prey;
Ere man has measured half his weary stage,
His luxuries have left him no reserve,
No maiden relishes, unbroach'd delights;
On cold-served repetitions he subsists,
And in the tasteless present chews the past;
Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down.
Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years
Have disinherited his future hours,
Which starve on orts, and glean their former field.
(ll. 303-324, p. 81)",,20425,"","""Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far, / And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast: / Auspicious era! golden days, begin!""
","",2013-06-06 14:11:08 UTC,Night the Third
7401,"",Reading,2013-06-06 14:19:19 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)",,20430,"","""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.""",Rooms and Throne,2013-06-06 14:20:45 UTC,Night the Third
7407,"",Reading,2013-06-10 19:21:55 UTC,"Wit dares attempt this arduous enterprise.
Since joys of Sense can't rise to Reason's taste,
In subtle Sophistry's laborious forge
Wit hammers out a reason new, that stoops
To sordid scenes, and greets them with applause.
Wit calls the Graces the chaste zone to loose,
Nor less than a plump god to fill the bowl;
A thousand phantoms, and a thousand spells,
A thousand opiates scatters to delude,
To fascinate, inebriate, lay asleep,
And the fool'd mind delightfully confound.
Thus that which shock'd the Judgment, shocks no more;
That which gave Pride offence, no more offends.
Pleasure and Pride, by nature mortal foes,
At war eternal which in man shall reign,
By Wit's address, patch up a fatal peace,
And hand in hand lead on the rank debauch,
From rank refined to delicate and gay.
Art, cursed Art! wipes off the' indebted blush
From Nature's cheek, and bronzes every shame.
Man smiles in ruin, glories in his guilt,
And Infamy stands candidate for praise.
(ll. 25-46, pp. 117-8 in CUP edition)",,20473,"","""Pleasure and Pride, by nature mortal foes, / At war eternal which in man shall reign, / By Wit's address, patch up a fatal peace, / And hand in hand lead on the rank debauch, / From rank refined to delicate and gay.""","",2013-06-10 19:21:55 UTC,Night the Fifth
7407,"","Reading; found again in Marjorie Nicholson's Newton Demands the Muse (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1946), 149-150.",2013-06-10 19:25:02 UTC,"Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond
Of feather'd fopperies, the sun adore:
Darkness has more divinity for me:
It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul
To settle on herself, our point supreme!
There lies our theatre; there sits our judge.
Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene;
'Tis the kind hand of Providence stretch'd out
'Twixt man and vanity; 'tis Reason's reign,
And Virtue's too; these tutelary shades
Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.
Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too;
It no less rescues Virtue than inspires.
(ll. 126-138, p. 120 in CUP edition)",,20476,"","""Darkness has more divinity for me: / It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul / To settle on herself, our point supreme! / There lies our theatre; there sits our judge.""",Court,2014-07-25 18:51:09 UTC,Night the Fourth
7407,"",Reading,2013-06-10 19:26:13 UTC,"Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond
Of feather'd fopperies, the sun adore:
Darkness has more divinity for me:
It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul
To settle on herself, our point supreme!
There lies our theatre; there sits our judge.
Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene;
'Tis the kind hand of Providence stretch'd out
'Twixt man and vanity; 'tis Reason's reign,
And Virtue's too; these tutelary shades
Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.
Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too;
It no less rescues Virtue than inspires.
(ll. 126-138, p. 120 in CUP edition)",,20477,"","""Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene; / 'Tis the kind hand of Providence stretch'd out / 'Twixt man and vanity; 'tis Reason's reign, / And Virtue's too; these tutelary shades / Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.""","",2013-06-10 19:26:13 UTC,Night the Fifth
7407,"",Reading,2013-06-10 19:49:30 UTC,"And what says Genius? ""Let the dull be wise.""
Genius, too hard for right, can prove it wrong;
And loves to boast where blush men less inspired.
It pleads exemption from the laws of Sense;
Considers Reason as a leveller;
And scorns to share a blessing with the crowd;
That wise it could be, thinks an ample claim
To Glory, and to Pleasure gives the rest.
Crassus but sleeps, Ardelio is undone.
Wisdom less shudders at a fool than wit.
(ll. 264-273, pp. 123-4in CUP edition)",,20489,"","""It pleads exemption from the laws of Sense; / Considers Reason as a leveller; / And scorns to share a blessing with the crowd.""",Inhabitants,2013-06-10 19:49:30 UTC,Night the Fifth