"Excited, thus, the smother'd fire, at length, / Bursts into blaze, and burns, with open strength: / That image, which, before, but sooth'd the mind, / Now lords it there, and rages, unconfined"

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)


Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Date
1726, 1753
Metaphor
"Excited, thus, the smother'd fire, at length, / Bursts into blaze, and burns, with open strength: / That image, which, before, but sooth'd the mind, / Now lords it there, and rages, unconfined"
Metaphor in Context
Excited, thus, the smother'd fire, at length,
Bursts into blaze, and burns, with open strength:
That image, which, before, but sooth'd the mind,
Now lords it there, and rages, unconfined.

Mixing with all our thoughts it wastes the day,
And when night comes, it dreams the soul away.
Pungent impatience tingles in each vein,
And the sick bosom throbs, with aking pain.
(pp. 202-3; cf. 196 in 1726 miscellany)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 4 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1726, 1753, 1754).

See Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. By Several Hands. Publish’d by Richard Savage, Son of the Late Earl Rivers. (London: Printed for Samuel Chapman, at the Angel in Pall-Mall, 1726). <Link to ESTC>

Text from The Works of the Late Aaron Hill, Esq; in Four Volumes. Consisting of Letters on Various Subjects, and of Original Poems, Moral and Facetious. With an Essay on the Art of Acting. (London: Printed for the benefit of the family, 1753). <Link to ESTC>
Date of Entry
06/11/2014

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