"Then the good easy man, whom reason rules; / Rouz'd by bold insult, and injurious rage, / With sharp, and sudden check, th' astonish'd sons / Of violence confounds; firm as his cause, / His bolder heart; in awful justice clad; / His eyes effulging a peculiar fire: / And, as he charges thro' the prostrate war, / His keen arm teaches faithless men, no more / To dare the sacred vengeance of the just."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)


Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Thomas Warner; Samuel Richardson, printer
Date
1729
Metaphor
"Then the good easy man, whom reason rules; / Rouz'd by bold insult, and injurious rage, / With sharp, and sudden check, th' astonish'd sons / Of violence confounds; firm as his cause, / His bolder heart; in awful justice clad; / His eyes effulging a peculiar fire: / And, as he charges thro' the prostrate war, / His keen arm teaches faithless men, no more / To dare the sacred vengeance of the just."
Metaphor in Context
What would not, Peace! the patriot bear for thee?
What painful patience What incessant care?
What mixt anxiety? What sleepless toil?
Even from the rash protected what reproach?
For he thy value knows; thy friendship he
To human nature: but the better thou,
The richer of delight, sometimes the more
Inevitable War; when ruffian force
Awakes the fury of an injured state.
Then the good easy man, whom reason rules;
Rouz'd by bold insult, and injurious rage,
With sharp, and sudden check, th' astonish'd sons
Of violence confounds; firm as his cause,
His bolder heart; in awful justice clad;
His eyes effulging a peculiar fire:
And, as he charges thro' the prostrate war,
His keen arm teaches faithless men, no more
To dare the sacred vengeance of the just
.
Provenance
Searching "rule" and "reason" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
At least 29 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1729, 1730, 1731, 1734, 1735, 1738, 1741, 1751, 1752, 1757, 1762, 1768, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1775, 1784, 1788, 1794).

See Britannia. A Poem. (London: Printed for T. Warner, at the Black-Boy, in Pater-Noster-Row, 1729). <Link to ESTC>

Reading Liberty, The Castle of Indolence, and other Poems. Ed. James Sambrook. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
Date of Entry
06/22/2004
Date of Review
02/05/2011

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