The mind "sets a Drum at either Ear; / And Loud or Gentle, Harsh or Sweet, / Are but th' Alarums which They beat."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Jacob Tonson and John Barber
Date
1718
Metaphor
The mind "sets a Drum at either Ear; / And Loud or Gentle, Harsh or Sweet, / Are but th' Alarums which They beat."
Metaphor in Context
Hence too, that She might better hear,
She sets a Drum at either Ear;
And Loud or Gentle, Harsh or Sweet,
Are but th' Alarums which They beat
.
(p. 472, ll. 66-9)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Searching in ECCO and ESTC (1718, 1720, 1721, 1725, 1728, 1733, 1734, 1741, 1751, 1754, 1755, 1759, 1768, 1766, 1767, 1769, 1771, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1784, 1790, 1798). See also Prior's Poetical Works (1777, 1779, 1784, 1798). Found in A Collection of English Poets, vol. 10 (1776), The British Poets, vol. 18 (1778), and The Works of the English Poets (1779, 1790). I haven't yet been able to confirm that Alma is in 2 vol. Poems of 1755, 1766, 1767 (texts not available in ECCO).

See Prior's Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos published in Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for J. Tonson and J. Barber, 1718). <Link to ECCO>

Searching text from Poems on Several Occasions, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1905). Reading The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed. H. Bunker Wright and Monroe K. Spears. 2 vols. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1971).
Date of Entry
02/27/2004
Date of Review
01/23/2009

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.