work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5485,"",Reading,2003-07-28 00:00:00 UTC,"To doggerel now I turn my pen:
A time may come (but lord knows when)
That I may try to think again.
At present in my brain there floats
A thousand parti-colored motes;
From which, if time would but permit,
I might sift some sparks of wit;
And many a line in verse and prose
Are lost, whilst half-asleep I doze.
My pineal gland could you but view,
You'd scarce believe your eyes see true:
There's such a jumble; good and bad,
All sorts of thoughts, may there be had;
Like broker's shop, where we may find
Goods that belong to half mankind;
Which, should the master dare produce,
Are little worth, and out of use;
And joy could sparkle in his face,
Could he put better in their place.
Thus oft, from shop of brain, I try
To throw the dirt and rubbish by;
But still they gain their former state,
Or leave a vacuum in the pate.
(ll. 1-23, p. 346 in Lonsdale edition)",2003-10-23,14689,•More follows in the lines below. See next entry
•Some loose (FID-like) representations of thought follow in the next stanzas.
•Cross Reference: the Pythagorean idea of the soul?!,"""At present in my brain there floats / A thousand parti-colored motes; / From which, if time would but permit, / I might sift some sparks of wit.""","",2013-11-11 22:32:53 UTC,""
5532,"","",2004-06-22 00:00:00 UTC,"TO SILVIA
My lovely Silvia, while in blooming youth
Your mental powers are active, sprightly, gay,
Attend the voice of friendship and of truth,
That courts your notice in the moral lay.
Those active powers the Lord of nature gave
To reason's rule by choice alone confin'd,
For reason's empire never knew a slave,
Her sway is gentle and her laws are kind.
Her subjects take their orders from her eye,
While she to each their various task assigns;
And now o'er nature's ample field they fly,
A field far richer than Peruvian mines.
Here with unweary'd diligence they rove,
Collecting treasures to enrich the mind:
And many a flower and plant in dale or grove,
Of virtues rare and fadeless bloom they find.
And now with treasures fraught returning home,
Before their queen display the shining spoil,
Arrang'd in beauteous order round the dome,
Her approbation crowns the pleasing toil.
When chill'd by time's cold hand, those sprightly powers
Inclin'd to rest, inactive, cease to roam,
Those mental stores shall cheer the wintery hours,
And flowers unfading breathe their sweets at home.
Extracting food amid the vernal bloom,
So flies the industrious bee around the vale,
With native skill she forms the waxen comb,
To keep for wintery days the rich regale.
",,14799,"•INTEREST. Rich Poem. There is an extended allegory here that picks up form the previous metaphors. Reason's rule, working subjects, mining, flowers, treasures, storage, etc.
•I've included this entry thrice: Government, Minerals, Animals.
•The whole is then brought into comparison with the honey bee!","Reason's subjects work and return home with ""treasures fraught"" and display before their queen their ""shining spoils, which are laid up in ""mental stores.""",Coinage and Rooms,2013-06-11 18:37:16 UTC,I've included the entire poem
7738,"",ECCO-TCP,2013-10-16 17:01:53 UTC,"But the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees. It must be admonished by reproof, and allured by kindness. Its liveliest advances are frequently impeded by the obstinacy of prejudice, and its brightest promises often obscured by the tempests of passion. It is slow in its acquisition of virtue, and reluctant in its approaches to piety.
(p. 127)",,23012,"","""But the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees.""",Empire,2013-10-16 17:01:53 UTC,Thoughts on the Cultivation of the Heart and Temper in the Education of Daughters