"O God, to what a pitch are wrought / The councils of omniscient thought."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by Dryden Leach for the Author
Date
1765
Metaphor
"O God, to what a pitch are wrought / The councils of omniscient thought."
Metaphor in Context
O God, to what a pitch are wrought
The councils of omniscient thought,

  How dear unto my soul,
To what an infinite of sums
Their meanest estimation comes,
  What worlds on worlds the whole!
Categories
Provenance
HDIS (Poetry): searching internal "councils"
Citation
Only 1 entry in ESTC (1765).

Text from The Poems of the Late Christopher Smart ... Consisting of His Prize Poems, Odes, Sonnets, and Fables, Latin and English Translations: Together With Many Original Compositions, Not Included in the Quarto Edition. To Which Is Prefixed, an Account of His Life and Writings, Never Before Published. 2 vols. (London: Printed and Sold by Smart and Cowslade; and sold by F. Power and Co., 1791).

See also A Translation of the Psalms of David, Attempted in the Spirit of Christianity, and Adapted to the Divine Service. By Christopher Smart, A. M. Some Time Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and Scholar of the University. (London: Printed by Dryden Leach, for the author; and sold by C. Bathhurst in Fleet-Street; and W. Flexney, at Gray’s Inn Gate; and T. Merril, at Cambridge, 1765). <Link to ESTC>

Reading in Katrina Williamson and Marcus Walsh, eds., Christopher Smart: Selected Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Date of Entry
03/30/2004
Date of Review
06/20/2011

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.