"Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs / Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift, / The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd / Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain / To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE."
— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Work Title
Place of Publication
Cambridge
Date
April 1750, 1791
Metaphor
"Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs / Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift, / The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd / Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain / To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE."
Metaphor in Context
'Tis then, nor sooner, that the restless mind
Shall find itself at home; and like the ark
Fix'd on the mountain-top, shall look-aloft
O'er the vague passage of precarious life;
And, winds and waves and rocks and tempests past,
Enjoy the everlasting calm of Heav'n:
'Tis then, nor sooner, that the deathless soul
Shall justly know its nature and its rise:
'Tis then the human tongue new-tun'd shall give
Praises more worthy the eternal ear.
Yet what we can, we ought;--and therefore, Thou,
Purge thou my heart, Omnipotent and Good!
Purge thou my heart with hyssop, left like Cain
I offer fruitless sacrifice, with gifts
Offend, and not propitiate the Ador'd.
Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs
Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift,
The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd
Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain
To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE.
Yet still let reason thro' the eye of faith
View Him with fearful love; let truth pronounce,
And adoration on her bended knee
With Heav'n-directed hands confess His reign.
And let th'Angelic, Archangelic band
With all the Hosts of Heav'n, Cherubic forms,
And forms Seraphic, with their silver trumps
And golden lyres attend:--'For Thou art holy,
For thou art One, th'Eternal, who alone
Exerts all goodness, and transcends all praise.'
(pp. 20-1, ll. 121-150)
Shall find itself at home; and like the ark
Fix'd on the mountain-top, shall look-aloft
O'er the vague passage of precarious life;
And, winds and waves and rocks and tempests past,
Enjoy the everlasting calm of Heav'n:
'Tis then, nor sooner, that the deathless soul
Shall justly know its nature and its rise:
'Tis then the human tongue new-tun'd shall give
Praises more worthy the eternal ear.
Yet what we can, we ought;--and therefore, Thou,
Purge thou my heart, Omnipotent and Good!
Purge thou my heart with hyssop, left like Cain
I offer fruitless sacrifice, with gifts
Offend, and not propitiate the Ador'd.
Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs
Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift,
The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd
Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain
To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE.
Yet still let reason thro' the eye of faith
View Him with fearful love; let truth pronounce,
And adoration on her bended knee
With Heav'n-directed hands confess His reign.
And let th'Angelic, Archangelic band
With all the Hosts of Heav'n, Cherubic forms,
And forms Seraphic, with their silver trumps
And golden lyres attend:--'For Thou art holy,
For thou art One, th'Eternal, who alone
Exerts all goodness, and transcends all praise.'
(pp. 20-1, ll. 121-150)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
3 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1750, 1752, 1756, 1791).
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 On the Eternity of the Supreme Being. A Poetical Essay. by Christopher Smart, M. a. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall in the University of Cambridge. (Cambridge : printed by J. Bentham Printer to the University. Sold by W. Thurlbourn in Cambridge, C. Bathurst in Fleet-Street, R. Dodsley at Tully’s Head in Pall-Mall, London; and J. Hildyard at York, 1750). <Link to ESTC>
Reading in Katrina Williamson and Marcus Walsh, eds., Christopher Smart: Selected Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
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 On the Eternity of the Supreme Being. A Poetical Essay. by Christopher Smart, M. a. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall in the University of Cambridge. (Cambridge : printed by J. Bentham Printer to the University. Sold by W. Thurlbourn in Cambridge, C. Bathurst in Fleet-Street, R. Dodsley at Tully’s Head in Pall-Mall, London; and J. Hildyard at York, 1750). <Link to ESTC>
Reading in Katrina Williamson and Marcus Walsh, eds., Christopher Smart: Selected Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Date of Entry
06/21/2011
