"The images that play / Upon the mirror of the mind, will pierce / And burst the veil, and strive to show their shapes, / And tints of bright magnificence and beauty / Before a wondering world"

— Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton (1762-1837)


Place of Publication
Great Totham
Publisher
Charles Clark's Private Press
Date
1850
Metaphor
"The images that play / Upon the mirror of the mind, will pierce / And burst the veil, and strive to show their shapes, / And tints of bright magnificence and beauty / Before a wondering world"
Metaphor in Context
Oh! eloquent and sensitive young Bard,
Painter of Clifton's Grove, who though of birth
Seemingly humble, and by occupations
Parental that the heart make hard surrounded,
Yet melted with all tenderness, and music,
As harps before the breeze that whisper love!
Thou wert some Spirit sent from seats of bliss,
Where all the Muses sing symphonious airs.
For what mysterious cause we dare not guess,
But short thy trial was, and to congenial
Climes in the skies wert thou transported soon:
The turf lies light upon thine earthly relics,
And tears bedew them ever; and sweet flowers
Spring up; and nightly notes of harmony
Aërial over them, and round about,
Sound, as if magic on the spot was playing![1]
Many there are who think that accident
Opens the fountain wheels alike to all
Common--produces inward the same waters,
But only to a few are these same waters
Of purity and holy spirit given!
We lead a life of lost and anxious care
Honours to win, which some pronounce a breath,
An empty bubble! and which, after all,
As Falstaff says, Detraction clouds and covers!
But when the swelling treasures of the soul
Are full, they, like the smouldering flame, will find
A vent, and out! The images that play
Upon the mirror of the mind, will pierce
And burst the veil, and strive to show their shapes,
And tints of bright magnificence and beauty
Before a wondering world
! But if they were
The mirrors which reflected only forms
External, much of value they would lose.
By some mysterious power they represent
Forms of their own creation, or inspir'd
By visions, as it seems, of other worlds!
The spectacles this earthly scene of things
Exhibits are sublime; but much they have not,
In their material essence, which the mind
Of Genius gives them! It is magical,
The spell that wakes such wonders! As a dream
Is all the beauty that the Bard brings forth!
Thus speaks he better of the past than present,
Because the cold and calculating eye
Pretends not to detect him by the absence
Of those invisible images he draws!
Thus Memory mingles up the actual,
Impress'd upon the brain from outward shapes,
With the creations woven in the loom
That works within: and thus to the poet
All past life is but as a shadowy vision,
That which when present was but dull and hard,
Or painful, is converted in the retrospect
To bright, soft, mellow tints of exquisite
Grandeur or gentleness, and fond attraction!
Provenance
Searching "mind" and "mirror" in HDIS (Poetry)
Date of Entry
10/10/2005

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