updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2013-06-13 15:35:56 UTC,14984,"Sonnet XXXVII.
Sent to the Honorable Mrs. O'Neill, with Painted Flowers
The poet's fancy takes from Flora's realm
Her buds and leaves to dress fictitious powers,
With the green olive shades Minerva's helm,
And gives to Beauty's Queen, the Queen of flowers.
But what gay blossoms of luxuriant Spring,
With rose, mimosa, amaranth entwin'd,
Shall fabled Sylphs, and fairy people bring,
As a just emblem of the lovely mind?
In vain the mimic pencil tries to blend
The glowing dyes that dress the flowery race,
Scented and colour'd by an hand divine!
Ah! not less vainly would the Muse pretend
On her weak lyre, to sing the native grace
And native goodness of a soul like thine! ","","""But what gay blossoms of luxuriant Spring, / With rose, mimosa, amaranth entwin'd, / Shall fabled Sylphs and fairy people bring, / As a just emblem of the lovely mind?""",5609,2011-10-06,Searching in HDIS (Poetry); found again reading,2004-07-09 00:00:00 UTC,"","",""
2011-10-06 22:43:56 UTC,14985,"O'erwhelm'd with sorrow, and sustaining long
""The proud man's contumely, th'oppressor's wrong,""
Languid despondency, and vain regret,
Must my exhausted spirit struggle yet?
Yes!--Robb'd myself of all that fortune gave,
Even of all hope--but shelter in the grave,
Still shall the plaintive lyre essay its powers
To dress the cave of Care with Fancy's flowers,
Maternal Love the fiend Despair withstand,
Still animate the heart and guide the hand.
--May you, dear objects of my anxious care,
Escape the evils I was born to bear!
Round my devoted head while tempests roll,
Yet there, where I have treasured up my soul,
May the soft rays of dawning hope impart
Reviving Patience to my fainting heart;--
And when its sharp solicitudes shall cease,
May I be conscious in the realms of peace
That every tear which swells my children's eyes,
From sorrows past, not present ills arise.
Then, with some friend who loves to share your pain,
For 'tis my boast that some such friends remain,
By filial grief, and fond remembrance prest,
You'll seek the spot where all my sorrows rest;
Recal my hapless days in sad review,
The long calamities I bore for you,
And--with an happier fate--resolve to prove
How well you merited--your mother's love.
(i, pp. 86-7)","","""Still shall the plaintive lyre essay its powers / To dress the cave of Care with Fancy's flowers.""",5610,2009-02-28,Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2006-01-18 00:00:00 UTC,"",Volume I,""
2009-09-14 19:43:21 UTC,15329,"In vain, to thy white standard gathering round,
Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found:
In vain, to push to birth thy great design,
Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join;
All, from conflicting ranks, of power possesst
To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast.
Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail,
A Nation's eloquence, combined, must fail:
Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try;
The plausive argument, the daring lie,
The artful gloss, that moral sense confounds,
The' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds:
Bane of ingenuous minds!--the' unfeeling sneer,
Which sudden turns to stone the falling tear:
They search assiduous, with inverted skill,
For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill;
With impious mockery wrest the sacred page,
And glean up crimes from each remoter age:
Wrung Nature's tortures, shuddering, while you tell,
From scoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell;
In Britain's senate, Misery's pangs give birth
To jests unseemly, and to horrid mirth--
Forbear!--thy virtues but provoke our doom,
And swell the' account of vengeance yet to come;
For, not unmarked in Heaven's impartial plan,
Shall man, proud worm, contemn his fellow-man!
And injured Afric, by herself redresst,
Darts her own serpents at her tyrant's breast.
Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known,
With sure contagion fastens on his own;
In sickly languors melts his nerveless frame,
And blows to rage impetuous Passion's flame:
Fermenting swift, the fiery venom gains
The milky innocence of infant veins;
There swells the stubborn will, damps learning's fire,
The whirlwind wakes of uncontrouled desire,
Sears the young heart to images of woe,
And blasts the buds of Virtue as they blow.
(ll. 19-56, pp. 123-4)","","The ""buds of Virtue"" may be blasted as they blow",5750,,HDIS,2004-01-02 00:00:00 UTC,"","",""
2009-09-14 19:44:02 UTC,15583,"A Fragment. The Blind Man
SAY, reverend man, why midst this stormy night
Wander'st thou, darkling and exposed, alone?
Alas! I would assist thee, though unknown.
'Rash youth! that God which robbed my eyes of sight
Darts through my mind a ray of sacred light:
The winds I heed not, nor the lashing shower,
My sinewy frame is firm, my soaring mind has power.
This oaken staff feels out the dangerous way:
'Twas Heaven's fierce fire which swept my eyes away,
And left an orbless trunk, that knows nor night nor day.
Yet strong ideas rooted in my brain
Form there an universe, which doth contain
Those images which Nature's hand displays,
The heavenly arch, the morning's glowing rays;
Mountains and plains, the sea by tempests hurled,
And all the grandeur of this glorious world!'
But, ah! how wild drives on the rapid storm,
Dashing the rain against thy reverend form!
Yon swelling river, foaming towards the main,
Smokes midst th' advancing waves and falling rain:
O, father! my young soul is shook within;
O! let me lead you from this horrid scene.
'I yield;--but let not fear thy mind deform:
Hark! 'tis God's voice which urges on the storm;
He to this world of elements gave form.
From them he moulded all, yet gave not peace,
But broke the harmony, and bade them rage;
He meant not happiness should join with ease,
But vaired joys and pains should all the world engage.'
(ll. 1-29, p. 490-1)","","Strong ideas may be ""rooted"" in the brain",5851,,Reading,2003-07-29 00:00:00 UTC,•Oliver Sack's has just recently published an article in the New Yorker about what the blind see. ,I've included the whole poem,""
2013-06-13 16:31:05 UTC,20625,"Wit, that no suffering could impair,
Was thine, and thine whose mental powers
Of force to chase the fiends that tear
From Fancy's hands her budding flowers.
(ll. 25-8)","","""Wit, that no suffering could impair, / Was thine, and thine whose mental powers / Of force to chase the fiends that tear / From Fancy's hands her budding flowers.""",7434,,Reading,2013-06-13 16:31:05 UTC,"",Volume II,""
2013-06-13 17:18:37 UTC,20630,"Thou spectre of terrific mien,
Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye,
In whose fierce train each form is sees
That drives sick Reason to insanity!
I woo thee with unusual prayer,
""Grim visaged, comfortless Despair:""
Approach; in me a willing victim find,
Who seeks thine iron sway--and calls thee kind!
Ah! hide for ever from my sight
The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay,
Portrays some vision of delight,
Then bids the fairy tablet fade away;
While in dire contrast, to mine eyes
Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise,
And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower,
Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!
I bid the traitor Love, adieu!
Who to this fond, believing bosom came,
A guest insidious and untrue,
With Pity's soothing voice--in Friendship's name;
The wounds he gave, nor Time shall cure
Nor Reason teach me to endure.
And to that breast mild Patience pleads in vain,
Which feels the curse--of meriting it's pain.
(ll. 1-24, pp. 49-50)",Punning on portray and draw?,"""Ah! hide for ever from my sight / The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay, / Portrays some vision of delight, / Then bids the fairy tablet fade away; / While in dire contrast, to mine eyes / Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise, / And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower, / Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!""",7438,,Reading,2013-06-13 17:18:37 UTC,"","",Writing