work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4337,"","Searching ""throne"" and ""reason"" in HDIS (Poetry); found again ""idea""; and again ""fancy""; confirmed in ECCO.",2004-07-19 00:00:00 UTC,"It chanc'd, when soft Favonian gusts untie
The stiff'ned Floods, and warm the frozen Sky;
When genial heats distil on every Gale,
And various Flora paints the blushing Vale:
The smiling Season call'd our Hero forth,
To view her op'ning Blooms, and lab'ring Earth:
Silent he strays along the lonely Mead,
Where Shrubs their aromatick Fragrance bleed;
His Thoughts a while unbent from doing Good,
Wrapt in the Murmurs of the Vocal flood:
When, faint with Age, or sudden Cares oppress'd,
On the green Herb he stretch'd his Limbs to rest;
Thick Shades, obsequious to the Call, arise,
And a deep Slumber seals his weary Eyes;
His Fancy still awake; the roving Guest
Usurps the Throne of Reason in his Breast:
Forms great Ideas, and religious Schemes,
A busy mime, and floats in golden Dreams.
(cf. p. 28 in 1720 edition)",,11338,•I've included twice: Throne and Guest,"""His Fancy still awake; the roving Guest / Usurps the Throne of Reason in his Breast: / Forms great Ideas, and religious Schemes, / A busy mime, and floats in golden Dreams.""",Empire,2014-03-07 21:05:13 UTC,""
4360,"","Searching ""soul"" and ""cell"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-08-17 00:00:00 UTC,"Dreams which in Sleep their various Scenes display,
And mimick the Transactions of the Day,
Nor from th' Omniscient Pow'rs above descend,
Nor future Good presage, nor Ill portend,
Nor the conceal'd Decrees of Fate foreshow,
But from our waking Thoughts mechanically flow.
For Nature by fix'd Laws has wisely join'd
The bright Ideas of the conscious Mind
To Motions of the liquid spirit'ous Train,
Thro' previous Traces of the humid Brain;
These, when the Soul by drowsy Sleep oppress'd
Into her private Cell retires to Rest,
Thro' beaten Paths their wand'ring Courses take,
And Images confus'd of things awake.
(ll. 1-14)",,11457,INTEREST,"""For Nature by fix'd Laws has wisely join'd / The bright Ideas of the conscious Mind / To Motions of the liquid spirit'ous Train, / Thro' previous Traces of the humid Brain; / These, when the Soul by drowsy Sleep oppress'd / Into her private Cell retires to Rest, / Thro' beaten Paths their wand'ring Courses take, / And Images confus'd of things awake.""",Inhabitants and Rooms,2013-10-15 02:07:07 UTC,Poems on Several Occasions. I've included the entire poem.
4525,"","Reading. Found again searching ""rule"" and ""reason"" in HDIS (Poetry).",2003-11-04 00:00:00 UTC,"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end;
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.
(Epistle II, ll. 59-66)",2004-06-22,11887,"•I've included twice: once in Government, once in Machine: Balance","""Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.""","",2017-03-08 19:51:19 UTC,Epistle II
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,""
4561,Wandering,"Searching ""mind"" and ""room"" in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.",2005-08-29 00:00:00 UTC,"Remote from Strife, from urban Throngs, and Noise.
Here dwells my Soul amidst domestic Joys:
No ratling Coaches serious Thoughts annoy;
Nor busy prating Fools my Peace destroy:
Wrapt up in all the Sweets of rural Ease,
My great Creator's Works my Senses please.
The Mind, in peaceful Solitude, has Room
To range in Thought, and ramble far from home,
Others may court the Joys which Princes give,
Whilst I, in sacred Silence, truly live.
(cf. p. 230 in 1734 ed.)",,11983,"","""The Mind, in peaceful Solitude, has Room / To range in Thought, and ramble far from home.""","",2014-03-10 20:46:52 UTC,I've included the entire poem
4598,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2005-08-29 00:00:00 UTC,"As Years advance, th'abated Soul in most
Sinks to low Ebb, in second Childhood lost;
And feeble Age, dishonouring our Kind,
Robs all the Treasures of the wasted Mind;
With hov'ring Clouds obscures the muffled Sight,
And dim Suffusion of enduring Night:
But the rich Fervour of his rising Rage
Prevail'd o'er all th'Infirmities of Age;
And, unimpair'd by Injuries of Time,
Enjoy'd the Bloom of a perpetual Prime:
His Fire not less, he more correctly writ,
With ripen'd Judgment and digested Wit,
When the luxuriant Ardour of his Youth
Succeeding Years had tam'd to better Growth,
And seem'd to break the Body's Crust away,
To give th'expanded Mind more Room to play;
Which, in its Evening, open'd on the Sight
Surprizing Beams of full Meridian Light,
As thrifty of its Splendor it had been,
And all its Lustre had reserv'd 'till then.",,12109,"","""As Years advance, th'abated Soul in most / Sinks to low Ebb, in second Childhood lost; / And feeble Age, dishonouring our Kind, / Robs all the Treasures of the wasted Mind""","",2013-06-11 18:17:37 UTC,""
7479,"",Reading,2013-06-20 15:46:32 UTC,"As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce,
All winter drives along the darken'd air;
In his own loose revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the white abrupt; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray:
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain effort. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, that fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising thro' the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the tract and bless'd abode of man:
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost,
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land unknown,
What water, of the still unfrozen eye,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh mountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks,
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Thro' the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling rack, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
(ll. 350-395)",,21044,"","""Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, / Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home / Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth / In many a vain effort.""","",2013-06-20 15:46:32 UTC,""
7479,"",Reading,2013-06-20 15:59:52 UTC,"Clear frost succeeds; and thro' the blue serene,
For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies:
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air
Storing afresh with elemental life.
Close crowds the shining atmosphere; and binds
Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace,
Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood;
Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves,
In swifter sallies darting to the brain;
Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
All nature feels the renovating force
Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye
[I]n desolation seen. The vacant glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year,
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
Of ruddy fire: and luculent along
The purer rivers flow; their sullen deeps,
Amazing, open to the shepherd's gaze,
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.
(l. 650-670)",,21050,"","""Close crowds the shining atmosphere; and binds / Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace, / Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood; / Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves, / In swifter sallies darting to the brain; / Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool, / Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.""",Throne,2013-06-20 15:59:52 UTC,""
7484,"",Reading,2013-06-21 13:53:57 UTC,"Careless, he look'd, yet, heedful of his Way,
Broke the kind Current's unobstructing Sway,
That kiss'd his Oars, and hasten'd to obey:
Scarce was his Course oblique, for each glad Boat,
That, envious, stem'd all other's rival Float,
Fix'd, and enchanted, when this Youth drew nigh,
Hung on his passing Notes, and help'd him by:
The Muses row'd him, and the Graces' Care
Trim'd his light Sails, and spread them to the Air;
In his Boat's Bottom green-ey'd Envy lay,
And serv'd, as Ballast, while she clog'd his way:
Down from her Chariot light-wing'd Fancy flew,
And o'er him, loose, her Starry Mantle threw;
Pleasure, Praise, Beauty, 'twixt his Shrowds trod gay,
And danc'd the measur'd Moments soft away:
Sportful as ZEPHYRS, in his Smiles, they strove,
And the Young Loves forsook their Mother's Grove.
(pp. 25-6)",,21082,"","""Down from her Chariot light-wing'd Fancy flew, / And o'er him, loose, her Starry Mantle threw.""","",2013-06-21 13:54:21 UTC,""
7861,"",Reading,2014-04-07 15:40:42 UTC,"The mind not taught to think, no useful store
To fix reflection, dreads the vacant hour.
Turn'd on its self its num'rous wants are seen,
And all the mighty void that lies within
Yet cannot wisdom stamp our joys complete;
'Tis conscious virtue crowns the blest retreat.
Who feels not that, the private path must shun.
And fly to publick view t' escape his own;
In life's gay scenes uneasy thoughts suppress,
And lull each anxious care in dreams of peace.
'Midst foreign objects not employ'd to roam,
Thought, sadly active, still corrodes at home:
A serious moment breaks the false repose,
And guilt in all its naked horror shows.
(p. 211)",,23762,"","""'Midst foreign objects not employ'd to roam, / Thought, sadly active, still corrodes at home.""","",2014-04-07 15:40:42 UTC,""