work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6255,"",Searching HDIS (Poetry),2005-05-27 00:00:00 UTC,"""To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,""--
Hold, hold! that's not my cue, we 've no intention
By ""tender strokes"" to sharpen girls' invention:
The soul will waken time enough, ne'er fear;
No lines shall rouse the slumbering passions here.
O! ever sacred be the deep repose
Which Youth, on Innocence' pure bosom, knows;
Before a wish, a throb, a care, have taught
The pangs of feeling or the lines of thought.
O happy period! soon to pass away,
Soon will the swelling gales assert their sway,
And drive the vessel from the sheltered port,--
O guide it Heaven!--of winds and waves the sport.
Nor yet ""to raise the genius"" is our aim,
With Shakespear's high-wrought scenes and words of flame.
A little story, drawn from fairy lore,
A nursery tale, this evening we explore:
""To mend the heart,"" indeed, we mean to try,
And show what poison lurks in flattery.
'Tis true our hero was a prince--what then!
Believe me, Flattery stoops to common men.
A little dose, made up with skill and care,
A grain or two of incense, all can bear:
'Tis life's first rule,--by complaisance we live;
All flatter all, and to receive we give.
Myself, for instance, am sent here tonight
With soothing speech your favour to invite;
And when our piece is done, perhaps e'en you,
My gentle auditors, may flatter too,
And make us boast our talents and our skill,
When all the merit is in your good will.
But there's a theme which asks a verse this day,
Where Flattery has no power her tints to lay;
This hallowed day, in Hymen's golden bands
Which joined consenting hearts and willing hands.
How many years ago should any ask,
Look round,--to count them is an easy task;
Each tiptoe girl, and each aspiring boy,
Date, as they pass, the years of love and joy.
O happy state! where blessings number years,
And smiles are only quenched in more delicious tears.
Here, should my willing lips the theme pursue,
And draw the lovely scene in colours due,
Paint the well-ordered home, the sacred seat
Where social joys and active virtues meet;
These wield in love, and those in love obey
The peaceful sceptre of domestic sway;
Where sparkling Fancy weaves her airy dream,
And Science sheds around her steady beam,--
Each answering heart the faithful sketch would own,
And glow with feelings raised by truth alone.",2011-06-26,16558,"•C-H categorizes in Poetry. REVISIT issues of genre.
•Bands belong under Fetters?","""This hallowed day, in Hymen's golden bands / Which joined consenting hearts and willing hands.""",Fetters,2011-05-27 14:27:39 UTC,I've included the entire Prologue
7080,"",Reading,2011-09-02 19:29:43 UTC,"On Eloquence, prevailing art!
Whose force can chain the list'ning heart;
The throb of Sympathy inspire,
And kindle every great desire;
With magic energy controul
And reign the sov'reign of the soul!
That dreams while all its passions swell,
It shares the power it feels so well;
As visual objects seem possest
Of those clear hues by light imprest;
Oh, skill'd in every grace to charm,
To soften, to appal, to warm;
Fill with thy noblest rage the breast,
Bid on those lips thy spirit rest,
That shall, in BRITAIN's Senate, trace
The wrongs of AFRIC's Captive Race!--
But Fancy o'er the tale of woe
In vain one heighten'd tint would throw;
For ah, the Truth, is all we guess
Of anguish in its last excess:
Fancy may dress in deeper shade
The storm that hangs along the glade,
Spreads o'er the ruffled stream its wing,
And chills awhile the flowers of Spring:
But, where the wintry tempests sweep
In madness, o'er the darken'd deep;
Where the wild surge, the raging wave,
Point to the hopeless wretch a grave;
And Death surrounds the threat'ning shore--
Can Fancy add one horror more?
(pp. 21-3, ll. 321-350)",,19131,"","""On Eloquence, prevailing art! / Whose force can chain the list'ning heart; / The throb of Sympathy inspire, / And kindle every great desire; / With magic energy controul / And reign the sov'reign of the soul!""","",2011-09-02 19:29:43 UTC,""
7167,"","Searching ""chain"" and ""soul"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2012-01-12 04:00:53 UTC," ""Dost thou not see,--or art thou blind with age,--
How many Graces on her eyelids sit,
Linking those viewless chains that bind the soul,
And sharpening smooth discourse with pointed wit;
How many where she moves attendant wait,
The slow smooth step inspire, or high commanding gait?",,19448,"","""Dost thou not see,--or art thou blind with age,-- / How many Graces on her eyelids sit, / Linking those viewless chains that bind the soul, / And sharpening smooth discourse with pointed wit.""",Fetters,2012-01-12 04:01:12 UTC,""
7207,"","Reading Anne K. Mellor’s “The Rights of Woman and the Woman Writers of Wollstonecraft’s Day” in Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Claudia L. Johnson (Cambridge UP, 2002), 143.",2012-03-29 19:39:16 UTC,"Of all bondage, mental bondage is surely the most fatal; the absurd despotism which has hitherto, with more than gothic barbarity, enslaved the female mind, the enervating and degrading system of manners by which the understandings of women have been chained down to frivolity and trifles, have increased the general tide of effeminacy and corruption. To conform to the perpetual fluctuation of fashion (and few have the courage to dare the ""slow and moving finger of scorn,"" which is pointed at every external singularity) requires almost their whole time and attention, and leaves little leisure for intellectual improvement.
(III, 19-20)",,19659,"","""Of all bondage, mental bondage is surely the most fatal; the absurd despotism which has hitherto, with more than gothic barbarity, enslaved the female mind, the enervating and degrading system of manners by which the understandings of women have been chained down to frivolity and trifles, have increased the general tide of effeminacy and corruption.""",Fetters,2012-03-29 19:39:25 UTC,No. III. On the Influence of Authority and Custom on the Female Mind and Manners