"[B]affled here / By his omnipotence Philosophy / Slowly her thoughts inadequate revolves, / And stands, with all his circling wonders round her, / Like heavy Saturn in th'etherial space / Begirt with an inexplicable ring."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)


Date
January, 1754; 1791
Metaphor
"[B]affled here / By his omnipotence Philosophy / Slowly her thoughts inadequate revolves, / And stands, with all his circling wonders round her, / Like heavy Saturn in th'etherial space / Begirt with an inexplicable ring."
Metaphor in Context
Survey the magnet's sympathetic love,
That wooes the yielding needle; contemplate
Th'attractive amber's power, invisible
Ev'n to the mental eye; or when the blow
Sent from th'electric sphere assaults thy frame,
Shew me the hand, that dealt it!--baffled here
By his omnipotence Philosophy
Slowly her thoughts inadequate revolves,
And stands, with all his circling wonders round her,
Like heavy Saturn in th'etherial space
Begirt with an inexplicable ring
.
(p. 32, ll. 80-90)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 5 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1754, 1758, 1773, 1787, and 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 also On the Power of the Supreme Being. a Poetical Essay. By Christopher Smart, M.A. 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, J. Newbery in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, London; and J. Hildyard at York, 1754). <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

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