work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5715,"","Searching HDIS (Poetry); variant in Stuart's Star: ""But tho' theirs they have enroll'd me""",2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"Forced from home and all its pleasures,
Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase the stranger's treasures,
O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enroll'd me,
Minds are never to be sold.
(ll. 1-8, p. 13)",,15232,•USE in entry for Coinage.,"""Minds are never to be sold""",Fetters,2014-08-10 04:45:30 UTC,Opening stanza
5724,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2006-01-18 00:00:00 UTC,"Shorn of her beams and fetter'd by her thought,
The fallen nymph the caves of Sadness sought;
Pre-damn'd in sentiment, to Anguish given,
She hid her visage from offended Heaven:
The sisterhood of Peace, who once she led,
Mov'd as she mov'd, and, as she follow'd, fled!",2011-06-26,15264,"","""Shorn of her beams and fetter'd by her thought, / The fallen nymph the caves of Sadness sought.""",Fetters,2011-05-27 14:12:38 UTC,""
6053,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2005-02-14 00:00:00 UTC,"Yon midnight bell, that frights the peaceful air!
Commands the Fathers to their wonted pray'r:
Now in long order flows the sable throng,
Like a dark, sullen stream that creeps along:
Why joins not Abelard the sainted train?
Does torpid sloth his ling'ring steps detain?
These walls, that pillow steep'd in tears, attest
That sleep is exil'd from this tortur'd breast:
This lamp proclaims the same, whose trembling beam
Guides while my hand pursues the glowing theme:
While the dread secret from my soul I tear,
And unreserv'd my bosom'd feelings bare.
Ah me! the passion that my soul misled
Was check'd, not conquer'd; buried, but not dead:
Now bursting from the grave, in evil hour,
It hastens to its prey with fiercer pow'r,
And, vulture-like, with appetite increas'd
It riots on the undiminish'd feast.
Daughter of Paraclete dost thou complain
In iron silence that I lock'd my pain?
That not to thee (soft solacer in woe)
I bad the troubled waves of Anguish flow?
Methought the course of three long years' retreat
Would scarce thy length'ning sacrifice complete:
Methought I should profane the hallow'd rite,
Did my laments thy pitying ear affright:
Thus at the altar, wrapt in holy dread,
The youth of Macedon in silence bled,
Nor from his tortur'd and consuming hand
Dismiss'd the living close-adhering brand.
But now thy slow inauguration's o'er,
And thou hast reach'd Religion's tranquil shore,
Now that stern habit throws without controul
Her chain of adamant around thy soul,
May not th' unhappy Abelard disclose
(To her who pities most) his train of woes?",2011-05-26,16046,•Rich passage,"""Now that stern habit throws without controul / Her chain of adamant around thy soul / May not th' unhappy Abelard disclose / (To her who pities most) his train of woes?""",Fetters,2011-05-26 20:50:48 UTC,""
6166,"",HDIS (Poetry),2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"You bid me write to amuse the tedious hours,
And save from withering my poetic powers;
Hard is the task, my friend, for verse should flow
From the free mind, not fetter'd down by woe.
Restless amidst unceasing tempests toss'd,
Whoe'er has cause for sorrow, I have most.
Would you bid Priam laugh, his sons all slain;
Or childless Niobe from tears refrain,
Join the gay dance, and lead the festive train?
Does grief or study most befit the mind
To this remote, this barbarous nook confined?
Could you impart to my unshaken breast
The fortitude by Socrates possess'd,
Soon would it sink beneath such woes as mine,
For what is human strength to wrath divine?
Wise as he was, and Heaven pronounced him so,
My sufferings would have laid that wisdom low.
Could I forget my country, thee and all,
And e'en the offence to which I owe my fall,
Yet fear alone would freeze the poet's vein,
While hostile troops swarm o'er the dreary plain.
Add that the fatal rust of long disuse
Unfits me for the service of the Muse.
Thistles and weeds are all we can expect
From the best soil impoverish'd by neglect;
Unexercised, and to his stall confined,
The fleetest racer would be left behind;
The best built bark that cleaves the watery way,
Laid useless by, would moulder and decay,--
No hope remains that time shall me restore,
Mean as I was, to what I was before.
Think how a series of desponding cares
Benumbs the genius and its force impairs.
How oft, as now, on this devoted sheet,
My verse constrain'd to move with measured feet,
Reluctant and laborious limps along,
And proves itself a wretched exile's song.
What is it tunes the most melodious lays?
'Tis emulation and the thirst of praise,
A noble thirst, and not unknown to me,
While smoothly wafted on a calmer sea.
But can a wretch like Ovid pant for fame?
No, rather let the world forget my name.
Is it because that world approved my strain,
You prompt me to the same pursuit again?
No, let the Nine the ungrateful truth excuse,
I charge my hopeless ruin on the Muse,
And, like Perillus, meet my just desert,
The victim of my own pernicious art;
Fool that I was to be so warn'd in vain,
And shipwreck'd once, to tempt the deep again!
Ill fares the bard in this unletter'd land,
None to consult, and none to understand.
The purest verse has no admirers here,
Their own rude language only suits their ear.
Rude as it is, at length familiar grown,
I learn it, and almost unlearn my own;--
Yet to say truth, even here the Muse disdains
Confinement, and attempts her former strains,
But finds the strong desire is not the power,
And what her taste condemns, the flames devour.
A part, perhaps, like this, escapes the doom,
And though unworthy, finds a friend at Rome;
But oh the cruel art, that could undo
Its votary thus! would that could perish too!
(ll. 1-65, pp. 5-6)",2011-06-27,16333,"","""You bid me write to amuse the tedious hours, / And save from withering my poetic powers; / Hard is the task, my friend, for verse should flow / From the free mind, not fetter'd down by woe.""",Fetters,2011-05-27 14:26:25 UTC,I've included the entire poem
5658,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""chains"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2011-07-20 16:41:57 UTC,"Miss GEORGE.
See George in the sweet paths of Melody tread,
By dull, frigid Insensibility led:
Tho' careless to please, her meek essays delight,
For she charms the rude throng, e'en in Dullness' despite.--
Had her gentle strains join'd the Syrens' fell band,
Ulysses had row'd to their dangerous land;
His Prudence had fled, and, his Wisdom had slept,
And Juno had rav'd, and Minerva had wept:
Then his name had not shone in the immortal story,
And Ithaca's matron had sigh'd for his glory.
Its anodyne powers the sick'ning make cheery,
And tears off the chain from the mind of the weary;
By her soft, blissful sonnets, all bosoms inspiring,
Even Spleen grows diseas'd--and, Despair lies expiring.
As the lark chaunts at sun-rise his diurnal pray'r,
All her loud liquid notes charge the babbling air;
The sounds were not sweeter when Thebes' famous wall
Obey'd the soft magic of Harmony's call;
For spells may be said to exist in that tone,
Whose graces can conquer all hearts--but her own.
Cecilia thus warbled the heaven-fraught line,
For her song was ador'd ere the nymph was divine.",,18937,"","""Its anodyne powers [Miss George's singing] the sick'ning make cheery, / And tears off the chain from the mind of the weary.""",Fetters,2011-07-20 16:41:57 UTC,""
7146,"","Searching ""bond"" and ""soul"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2012-01-08 19:01:46 UTC,"My soul her bondage ill endures;
I pant for liberty like yours;
I long for that immense profound,
That knows no bottom, and no bound;
Lost in infinity, to prove
The incomprehensible of Love.",,19399,"","""My soul her bondage ill endures; / I pant for liberty like yours.""",Fetters,2012-01-08 22:21:59 UTC,""
7147,"","Searching ""bond"" and ""soul"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2012-01-08 22:29:20 UTC,"""Ah, much deluded! lay aside
Thy threats, and anger misapplied!
Art not afraid with sounds like these
To offend, where thou canst not appease?
Death is not (wherefore dream'st thou thus?)
The son of Night and Erebus;
Nor was of fell Erynnis born
On gulfs where Chaos rules forlorn:
But, sent from God, his presence leaves,
To gather home his ripen'd sheaves,
To call encumber'd souls away
From fleshly bonds to boundless day,
(As when the winged hours excite,
And summon forth the morning-light)
And each to convoy to her place
Before the Eternal Father's face.
But not the wicked;--them, severe
Yet just, from all their pleasures here
He hurries to the realms below,
Terrific realms of penal woe!
Myself no sooner heard his call,
Than, 'scaping through my prison-wall,
I bade adieu to bolts and bars,
And soar'd, with angels, to the stars,
Like him of old, to whom 'twas given
To mount, on fiery wheels, to heaven.
Boötes' waggon, slow with cold,
Appall'd me not; nor to behold
The sword, that vast Orion draws,
Or even the Scorpion's horrid claws.
Beyond the Sun's bright orb I fly,
And, far beneath my feet, descry
Night's dread goddess, seen with awe,
Whom her winged dragons draw.
Thus, ever wondering at my speed,
Augmented still as I proceed,
I pass the planetary sphere,
The Milky Way--and now appear
Heaven's crystal battlements, her door
Of massy pearl, and emerald floor.
",,19400,"","""But, sent from God, his presence leaves, / To gather home his ripen'd sheaves, / To call encumber'd souls away / From fleshly bonds to boundless day, / (As when the winged hours excite, / And summon forth the morning-light) / And each to convoy to her place / Before the Eternal Father's face.""",Fetters,2012-01-08 22:30:33 UTC,""