"Fair Fancy wept"
— Collins, William (1721-1759)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for M. Cooper
Date
1743
Metaphor
"Fair Fancy wept"
Metaphor in Context
While born to bring the Muse's happier days,
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays:
While nursed by you she sees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwithered o'er his honoured tomb:
Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell
What secret transports in her bosom swell:
With conscious awe she hears the critic's fame,
And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespeare's name.
Hard was the lot those injured strains endured,
Unowned by Science and by years obscured:
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing sighs confessed
A fixed despair in every tuneful breast.
Not with more grief the afflicted swains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When lingering frosts the ruined seats invade
Where Peace resorted and the Graces played.
(ll. 2-16)
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays:
While nursed by you she sees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwithered o'er his honoured tomb:
Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell
What secret transports in her bosom swell:
With conscious awe she hears the critic's fame,
And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespeare's name.
Hard was the lot those injured strains endured,
Unowned by Science and by years obscured:
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing sighs confessed
A fixed despair in every tuneful breast.
Not with more grief the afflicted swains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When lingering frosts the ruined seats invade
Where Peace resorted and the Graces played.
(ll. 2-16)
Categories
Provenance
Searching keywords in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Published anonymously in London by Mary Cooper and originally titled Verses Humbly Addres'd to Sir Thomas Hanmer. Collected in The Poetical Works (1781). Text from The Poems (1969).
See Verses Humbly Address'd to Sir Thomas Hanmer. on His Edition of Shakespear's Works. by a Gentleman of Oxford (London, Printed for M. Cooper, 1743). <Link to ECCO>
Reading The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, and Oliver Goldsmith, ed. Roger Lonsdale (London and New York: Longman and Norton: 1972).
See Verses Humbly Address'd to Sir Thomas Hanmer. on His Edition of Shakespear's Works. by a Gentleman of Oxford (London, Printed for M. Cooper, 1743). <Link to ECCO>
Reading The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, and Oliver Goldsmith, ed. Roger Lonsdale (London and New York: Longman and Norton: 1972).
Date of Entry
11/22/2003
