"Nor is it discontent to keep the mind / Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil / In the hot throng, where we become the spoil / Of our infection"
— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Date
1816
Metaphor
"Nor is it discontent to keep the mind / Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil / In the hot throng, where we become the spoil / Of our infection"
Metaphor in Context
To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind:
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil
Of our infection, till too late and long
We may deplore and struggle with the coil,
In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong
Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.
(p. 870, ll. 552-661)
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil
Of our infection, till too late and long
We may deplore and struggle with the coil,
In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong
Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.
(p. 870, ll. 552-661)
Categories
Provenance
Reading in Perkins. Text from HDIS.
Citation
Perkins, David, ed. English Romantic Writers. 2nd ed. Harcourt Brace Publishers, 1995.
Date of Entry
05/27/2008
