work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5328,"",Reading and HDIS (Poetry),2003-11-23 00:00:00 UTC,"Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined:
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.
(ll. 251-64, pp. 686-7)",2010-06-10,14302,"•The phrase ""vacant mind"" appears earlier in the poem: ""the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind"" (l. 122). Lonsdale glosses vacant here as ""Untroubled by thought, carefree (as in 'vacant hilarity', Vicar of Wakefield"" (p. 681).","""Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, / The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway; / Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, / Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.""",Inhabitants,2010-06-10 18:44:22 UTC,""
5366,"",HDIS (Poetry),2004-01-06 00:00:00 UTC,"For as old Memnon's image, long renown'd
By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch
Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains; even so did nature's hand
To certain species of external things,
Attune the finer organs of the mind:
So the glad impulse of congenial powers,
Or of sweet sound, or fair proportion'd form,
The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,
Thrills through imagination's tender frame,
From nerve to nerve: all naked and alive
They catch the spreading rays: till now the soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without
Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss: the intellectual power
Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,
And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away,
Sink to divine repose, and love and joy
Alone are waking; love and joy, serene
As airs that fan the summer. O! attend,
Whoe'er thou art, whom these delights can touch,
Whose candid bosom the refining love
Of nature warms, o! listen to my song;
And i will guide thee to her favourite walks,
And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,
And point her loveliest features to thy view.
(Bk. I, ll. 109-39, pp. 17-8)",2011-06-11,14404,"•Edited to include more lines: Throne and Population now lumped in; two entries deleted.
•INTERESTING. The intellectual power is often female.","""Then the inexpressive strain / Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams / Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, / And vales of bliss: the intellectual power / Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear, / And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away, / Sink to divine repose, and love and joy / Alone are waking; love and joy, serene / As airs that fan the summer.""",Inhabitants and Throne,2011-06-11 19:18:54 UTC,Book I
7768,"",Searching in Google Books,2013-11-12 23:44:44 UTC,"I am willing to take the Poet's Word for it, that my Skill has been well employ'd; and that so useful a Discovery will amply recompence all my Pains and Application. For though it is generally believed that few Statesmen are much afflicted with this terrible Inmate; yet, upon a careful Inspection of human Nature, I find it to be a vulgar Error; and am fully satisfied that, notwithstanding the outward placid Behaviour and smiling Aspect of these Men, (which may be the Effect of Habit and Art) their own Minds often put them on the Rack, and torment them with Reflections on the vile Measures, which they are pursuing.br>
(p. 244)",,23190,"","""For though it is generally believed that few Statesmen are much afflicted with this terrible Inmate; yet, upon a careful Inspection of human Nature, I find it to be a vulgar Error; and am fully satisfied that, notwithstanding the outward placid Behaviour and smiling Aspect of these Men, (which may be the Effect of Habit and Art) their own Minds often put them on the Rack, and torment them with Reflections on the vile Measures, which they are pursuing.""",Inhabitants,2013-11-13 04:30:30 UTC,""
5088,"",Reading,2016-02-23 15:54:22 UTC,"But for sleep--I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world--'tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of the prisoner--the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompence the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us,--that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it) or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he lays down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that which ever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her--no desire--or fear--or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty pass'd, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.
(IV.xv, pp. 115-7; Norton, 210)",,24843,"Succesion? -- What is ""sweet secession""?","""But for sleep--I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world--'tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of the prisoner--the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompence the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us,--that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it) or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he lays down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that which ever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her--no desire--or fear--or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty pass'd, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.""","",2016-02-23 15:54:22 UTC,"Vol. IV, Chap. xv"