id,comments,provenance,dictionary,created_at,reviewed_on,work_id,theme,context,updated_at,metaphor,text
11694,"• Rich passage.
• I've combined entries into one entry.",Browsing in HDIS (Poetry),"",2003-11-24 00:00:00 UTC,2011-02-05,4441,"","",2011-02-05 19:11:53 UTC,"""Oh, let not the soft, penetrating plague / Creep on the freeborn mind! and working there, / With the sharp tooth of many a new-form'd want, / Endless, and idle all, eat out the heart / Of liberty; the high conception blast; / The noble sentiment, the impatient scorn / Of base subjection, and the swelling wish / For general good, erasing from the mind: While nought save narrow selfishness succeeds, / And low design, the sneaking passions all / Let loose, and reigning in the rankled breast.""","Oh, let not then waste luxury impair
That manly soul of toil which strings your nerves,
And your own proper happiness creates!
Oh, let not the soft, penetrating plague
Creep on the freeborn mind! and working there,
With the sharp tooth of many a new-form'd want,
Endless, and idle all, eat out the heart
Of liberty; the high conception blast;
The noble sentiment, the impatient scorn
Of base subjection, and the swelling wish
For general good, erasing from the mind:
While nought save narrow selfishness succeeds,
And low design, the sneaking passions all
Let loose, and reigning in the rankled breast.
Induced at last, by scarce perceived degrees,
Sapping the very frame of government,
And life, a total dissolution comes;
Sloth, ignorance, dejection, flattery, fear.
Oppression raging o'er the waste he makes;
The human being almost quite extinct;
And the whole state in broad corruption sinks.
Oh, shun that gulf: that gaping ruin shun!
And countless ages roll it far away
From you, ye heaven-beloved! May liberty,
The light of life! the sun of humankind!
Whence heroes, bards, and patriots borrow flame,
E'en where the keen depressive north descends,
Still spread, exalt, and actuate your powers!
While slavish southern climates beam in vain.
And may a public spirit from the throne,
Where every virtue sits, go copious forth,
Live o'er the land! the finer arts inspire;
Make thoughtful Science raise his pensive head,
Blow the fresh bay, bid Industry rejoice,
And the rough sons of lowest labour smile.
As when, profuse of Spring, the loosen'd West
Lifts up the pining year, and balmy breathes
Youth, life, and love, and beauty, o'er the world.
(ll. 248-85, pp. 28-9)"
12636,"•I've included this metaphor twice: once in 'Body' and once in 'Writing'
•INTEREST. Complaint that ""Fixt to no point - our passions veer about"" and involve us in doubt and the possibility that we ""rose from slime - to stock the earth's abodes""(109).His absurd image of the boat is undercut by his previous uses of the ship as a metaphor for the mind! An image of the World Upside Down.
",Gale's Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).,"",2004-01-06 00:00:00 UTC,,4768,"",Epistle IV,2009-09-14 19:37:12 UTC,"""Books, not well digested, blot the mind""","Form'd by themselves, when nimble watches ru[n]
Their circling limits with the radiant sun,
Or, when the ships, that plough the liquid main,
Contrive the structure, and their weight sustain,
Invent the sails - that wind the ambient air,
Guide their own rudder, and the passage steer;
When nature's laws - shall cease to operate,
Light elements-shall downward gravitate,
All things discordant - all prepost'rous move,
Earth start on high, the ocean roar above,
Then shall thy faith, we'll own, have cause to reel,
And Atheism may thy bosom steel.
As lushious feastings but corrupt the chyle,
Inflame the blood, and turn it into bile,
Vitiate the functions of the vital spring,
And, tho' but flow, th' accutest torture bring;
So books, not well digested, blot the mind,
But make us - in search of wisdom - blind,
Like too much wine - intoxicate the brain,
Make man to others, and himself a pain.
(p. 2-3, in. 109-10)"
12638,•INTEREST. His absurd image of the boat is undercut by his previous uses of the ship as a metaphor for the mind! An image of the World Upside Down.
•I've included twice: Blotting and Blindness,Gale's Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).,"",2004-01-06 00:00:00 UTC,2006-04-18,4768,"",Epistle IV,2009-09-14 19:37:13 UTC,"""So books, not well digested, blot the mind, / But make us - in search of wisdom - blind""","Form'd by themselves, when nimble watches ru[n]
Their circling limits with the radiant sun,
Or, when the ships, that plough the liquid main,
Contrive the structure, and their weight sustain,
Invent the sails - that wind the ambient air,
Guide their own rudder, and the passage steer;
When nature's laws - shall cease to operate,
Light elements-shall downward gravitate,
All things discordant - all prepost'rous move,
Earth start on high, the ocean roar above,
Then shall thy faith, we'll own, have cause to reel,
And Atheism may thy bosom steel.
As lushious feastings but corrupt the chyle,
Inflame the blood, and turn it into bile,
Vitiate the functions of the vital spring,
And, tho' but flow, th' accutest torture bring;
So books, not well digested, blot the mind,
But make us - in search of wisdom - blind,
Like too much wine - intoxicate the brain,
Make man to others, and himself a pain.
(p. 2-3, in. 109-10)"
14861,"•I've included thrice: Blank, Blind, Ray
•Baird and Ryskamp suggest that ""Jonquil"" may come from Lady Winchilsea's ""The Spleen"": ""Now the Jonquille o'ercomes the feeble Brain; / We faint beneath the Aromatick Pain"" (ll. 40-1). Lines of interest in themselves (and echoed by Pope?).","Found again searching ""mind"" and ""blank"" in HDIS (Poetry)",Writing,2003-12-16 00:00:00 UTC,2011-07-14,5562,Blank Slate,"",2011-07-14 19:35:59 UTC,"One may have a mind ""Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, / But now and then perhaps a feeble ray /Of distant wisdom shoots across his way.""","To rise at noon, sit slipshod and undress'd,
To read the news, or fiddle, as seems best,
Till half the world comes rattling at his door,
To fill the dull vacuity till four;
And just when evening turns the blue vault grey,
To spend two hours in dressing for the day;
To make the Sun a bauble without use,
Save for the fruits his heavenly beams produce,
Quite to forget, or deem it worth no thought,
Who bids him shine, or if he shine or not;
Through mere necessity to close his eyes
Just when the larks and when the shepherds rise;
Is such a life, so tediously the same,
So void of all utility or aim,
That poor Jonquil with almost every breath
Sighs for his exit, vulgarly called death;
For he, with all his follies, has a mind
Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind,
But now and then perhaps a feeble ray
Of distant wisdom shoots across his way,
By which he reads, that life without a plan,
As useless as the moment it began,
Serves merely as a soil for discontent
To thrive in; an incumbrance ere half spent.
Oh weariness beyond what asses feel,
That tread the circuit of the cistern wheel;
A dull rotation, never at a stay,
Yesterday's face twin image of to-day;
While conversation, an exhausted stock,
Grows drowsy as the clicking of a clock.
No need, he cries, of gravity stuff'd out
With academic dignity devout,
To read wise lectures, vanity the text:
Proclaim the remedy, ye learned, next;
For truth self-evident with pomp impress'd
Is vanity surpassing all the rest.
(ll. 75-110, pp. 319-20)"