work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7264,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2012-06-27 18:54:42 UTC," Three sprigs of Hecate in three districts born;
The Horse-guards, York, and Grub-street did adorn;
The first, in matchless mummery was clever,
And sold her mother, Common Sense, for ever.
The second beldam all the rest surpast,
In ease and arrogance--to mould the last;
As Nature's powers could no farther go,
To make a third, she join'd the other two;
Who calls mankind to marvel at her dealing,
And gets her pence by--literary stealing.
Such beldams as these ne'er encounter'd before,
And ne'er will again, until Time is no more;
They met in the World, and shook hands like Scotch cousins,
And were wedded by Fate, to get monsters by dozens.
These witches agreed,
In an hour of--need,
As the only means left them to fatten and feed,
To mount all at once, on Apollo's own steed;
And, by joining their stock, like three empyric doctors,
To gorge on men's vices, like bailiffs and proctors,
The first, a vile sybil, who seeks paupers huts,
To coax little spinsters with ginger-bread nuts:
Gave lies and salt-petre;
Some malice, some metre;
A few pointless strokes,
Old songs and stale jokes;
With witless bon mots from a vile memorandum;
Which the witch did essay,
Once to weave in a play,
But Pit, Box, or Gods could not stand 'em.
The second presented some well-temper'd fuel,
To kindle a flame in the World's busy ball,
As prejudice, pique, or occasion should call;
With ample decoctions of weak water-gruel;
Some cowslips half wither'd, and ill gather'd daisies,
An ounce of crampt wit, and a pound of strange phrases;
Which she stole on the side of the Parnassian mountain,
When she sipt the foul streams from the helicon fountain.
The third,
More absurd,
Than the iron-fed bird;
And whose brains lacked juice like an over-squeezed curd,
Had nothing of value to give but her--Word.
Except a small treatise 'gainst--running in debt;
And some tomes of the chaste Aretine,
With a few comic traits of the fair Antoinette,
When she wanders to see and be seen.",,19802,"","""The third, / More absurd, / Than the iron-fed bird; / And whose brains lacked juice like an over-squeezed curd, / Had nothing of value to give but her--Word.""","",2012-06-27 18:55:07 UTC,""