text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"To heav'n's blest regions, where perfection reigns,
And knowledge absolute her throne maintains;
There when the soul, in search of purer day,
Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay
Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart,
His vain attainments shall like shades depart,
And vision infinite of truths divine
That far beyond his weak conception shine,
Drown the faint glimmerings of his mental rays
In one all-pow'rful and immortal blaze.
",2010-03-24 02:35:00 UTC,"""There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart.""",2004-07-28 00:00:00 UTC,"","",2010-03-23,"",•I've included twice in Architecture: Prison and Tent of Clay,HDIS,8477,3228
"If to conceive how any thing can be
From shape extracted and locality
Is hard; what think you of the Deity;
His Being not the least relation bears,
As far as to the human mind appears,
To shape, or size, similitude, or place,
Cloath'd in no form, and bounded by no space.
Such then is God, a spirit pure refin'd
From all material dross, and such the human mind.
For in what part of essence can we see
More certain marks of immortality
Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight
She looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight;
Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam
From this dull earth, and seek her native home.",2013-06-04 15:47:23 UTC,"""Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight / She [the mind] looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight; / Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam / From this dull earth, and seek her native home.""",2005-07-18 00:00:00 UTC,"","",2013-06-04,Animals and Inhabitants and Rooms,•I've included twice: Inmate and Bird,Searching in HDIS (Poetry),14257,5302
"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.
",2013-06-11 18:37:16 UTC,"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.""",2004-06-22 00:00:00 UTC,I've included the entire poem,"",,Coinage and Rooms,"•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!","",14799,5532
Hence rash Belief! may thy wild thoughts again
Ne'er thro the cells of busy fancy rove!
Oblivion snatch their memory from my brain!
Nor leave a trace injurious to my love!,2009-09-14 19:43:25 UTC,"""Hence rash Belief! may thy wild thoughts again / Ne'er thro the cells of busy fancy rove!""",2005-08-28 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Rooms,"","Searching in ""thought"" and ""cell"" in HDIS (Poetry); found again ""fancy""",15354,5757
"I am glad you think that a friend's having been persecuted, imprisoned, maimed, and almost murdered, under the ancient government of France, is a good excuse for loving the revolution. What, indeed, but friendship, could have led my attention from the annals of imagination to the records of politics; from the poetry to the prose of human life? In vain might Aristocrates have explained to me the rights of kings, and Democrates have descanted on the rights of the people. How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain! But, however dull the faculties of my head, I can assure you, that when a proposition is addressed to my heart, I have some quickness of perception. I can then decide, in one moment, points upon which philosophers and legislators have differed in all ages: nor could I be more convinced of the truth of any demonstration in Euclid, than I am, that, that system of politics must be the best, by which those I love are made happy.
(Letter XXIII, p. 195; p. 140 in Broadview ed.)",2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC,"""How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!""",2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC,Letter XXIII,"",,Rooms,"",Reading; text from Google Books,21702,7542
"TULLIA.
Shame stopt my voice; Honour, and conscious Pride,
That scorn'd to meet on less than equal terms,
And hope of happier days: While Frugi liv'd
Thy sorrows kept possession of my heart,
And Love receded from the stronger guest;
Now his dear image rises to my view
So piteously array'd, with such a train
Of tender thoughts assails this shatter'd frame,
That Reason quits her fort, and flies before,
To the last verge of phrenzy and despair.
(p. 79)",2013-09-04 02:16:41 UTC,"""While Frugi liv'd / Thy sorrows kept possession of my heart, / And Love receded from the stronger guest; / Now his dear image rises to my view / So piteously array'd, with such a train / Of tender thoughts assails this shatter'd frame, / That Reason quits her fort, and flies before, / To the last verge of phrenzy and despair.""",2013-09-04 02:16:41 UTC,"","",,Rooms,"",LION,22688,7669
"Whoever thinks must see that man was made
To face the storm, not languish in the shade;
Action's his sphere, and,for that sphere design'd,
Eternal pleasures open on his mind.
For this, fair hope leads on the' impassion'd soul
Through life's wild labyrinths to her distant goal;
Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame,
The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame,
Or fondly gives reflection's cooler eye
A glance, an image, of a future sky.
Yet, though kind Heaven points out the' unerring road
That leads through nature up to bliss and God;
Spite of that God, and all his voice divine
Speaks in the heart, or teaches from the shrine,
Man, feebly vain, and impotently wise,
Disdains the manna sent him from the skies;
Tasteless of all that virtue gives to please,
For thought too active, and too mad for ease,
From wish to wish in life's mad vortex toss'd,
For ever struggling, and for ever lost;
He scorns religion, though her seraphs call,
And lives in rapture, or not lives at all.
(pp. 154-155)",2014-07-25 18:20:09 UTC,"""For this, fair hope leads on the' impassion'd soul / Through life's wild labyrinths to her distant goal; / Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame, / The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame, / Or fondly gives reflection's cooler eye / A glance, an image, of a future sky.""",2014-07-25 18:20:09 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,24302,7984