"Whilst like the Lamp's last Flame, their trembling Souls / Are on the Wing to leave their mortal Goals."

— Ramsay, Allan (1684-1758)


Date
w 1710, 1720
Metaphor
"Whilst like the Lamp's last Flame, their trembling Souls / Are on the Wing to leave their mortal Goals."
Metaphor in Context
Six Times the Day with Light and Hope arose,
As oft the Night her Terrors did oppose,
While toss'd on roring Waves the tender Crew
Had nought but Death and Horror in their View:
Pale Famine, Seas, bleak Cold at equal Strife,
Conspiring all against their Bloom of Life:
Whilst like the Lamp's last Flame, their trembling Souls
Are on the Wing to leave their mortal Goals
;
And Death before them stands with frightful Stare,
Their Spirits spent, and sunk down to despair.
Provenance
Searching "soul" and "lamp" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
At least 14 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1721, 1723, 1724, 1727, 1731, 1733, 1751, 1760, 1761, 1776, 1780, 1793, 1797, 1800).

Found in ECCO in Miscellaneous Works of that Celebrated Scotch Poet. Allan Ramsay (1724). See Poems by Allan Ramsay (1721, 1723, 1727, 1731, 1733, 1751, 1760, 1761, 1770, 1797, 1800), and Poems on Several Occasions (1776, 1780, 1793, 1794).

The Works of Allan Ramsay, eds. Burns Martin and John W. Oliver, et. al (London and Edinburgh: Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, 1944-1973).
Date of Entry
01/19/2006

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