Silence is the "Refuge of tender hearts must fear mixing "With the mad multitude, where passions fell, / And strangers to their bosom, enter wild, / Like Sin and Death in Paradise, to jar / On the soft music of according souls!"
— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Becket [etc.]
Date
1785
Metaphor
Silence is the "Refuge of tender hearts must fear mixing "With the mad multitude, where passions fell, / And strangers to their bosom, enter wild, / Like Sin and Death in Paradise, to jar / On the soft music of according souls!"
Metaphor in Context
Now slow along the blossom'd dale we go
Wooing sequester'd Silence, where she sits
Embow'r'd with shrubs (impervious to the ken
Of eyes which keep their worship for the world)
Refuge of tender hearts, who still must fear
(So delicately white th'unsullied gloss
Of innocence in love and faith engag'd)
To "spot its snowy mantle,"* should it mix
With the mad multitude, where passions fell,
And strangers to their bosom, enter wild,
Like Sin and Death in Paradise, to jar
On the soft music of according souls!
*Sterne
Wooing sequester'd Silence, where she sits
Embow'r'd with shrubs (impervious to the ken
Of eyes which keep their worship for the world)
Refuge of tender hearts, who still must fear
(So delicately white th'unsullied gloss
Of innocence in love and faith engag'd)
To "spot its snowy mantle,"* should it mix
With the mad multitude, where passions fell,
And strangers to their bosom, enter wild,
Like Sin and Death in Paradise, to jar
On the soft music of according souls!
*Sterne
Categories
Provenance
Searching "passion" and "stranger" in HDIS (Poetry); found again "bosom"
Date of Entry
03/05/2006
Date of Review
06/22/2010
