text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream,
There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme.
In subterraneous caves his life he led,
Black as the mine, in which he wrought for bread.
When on a day, emerging from the deep,
A sabbath-day, (such sabbaths thousands keep!)
The wages of his weekly toil he bore
To buy a cock--whose blood might win him more;
As if the noblest of the feather'd kind
Were but for battle and for death design'd;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent.
It chanced, (such chances Providence obey,)
He met a fellow-labourer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed,
But now the savage temper was reclaim'd.
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;
For all plead well who plead the cause of grace.
His iron-heart with Scripture he assail'd,
Woo'd him to hear a sermon, and prevail'd.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew,
Swift as the lightning-glimpse the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wonder'd he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.",2009-09-14 19:33:40 UTC,"""His iron-heart with Scripture he assail'd, / Woo'd him to hear a sermon, and prevail'd.""",2005-06-07 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Metal,"","Searching ""heart"" and ""iron"" in HDIS (Poetry)",8620,3347
"Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd by his alter'd speech, the change divine,
Laugh'd when they should have wept, and swore the day
Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.
""No,"" said the penitent: ""such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou seest, (thine eye the future sees,)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these,
Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;
Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,
Thy presence, thy embrace!""--He spoke an",2009-09-14 19:33:41 UTC,"""Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel, / Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;""",2005-06-09 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Metal,"","Searching ""heart"" and ""steel"" in HDIS (Poetry)",8629,3347
"In gulfs of aweful night we find
The God of our desires;
'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind,
And doubles all its fires.
(ll. 9-12, p. 104)",2009-09-14 19:44:59 UTC,"The ""yielding mind"" may be stamped",2003-12-17 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","","Found again searching ""stamp"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",15882,5973
"In gulfs of aweful night we find
The God of our desires;
'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind,
And doubles all its fires.
(ll. 9-12, p. 104)",2009-09-14 19:44:59 UTC,The mind's fires may be doubled,2003-12-17 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","",HDIS,15883,5973
"Pursue the theme, and you shall find
A disciplined and furnish'd mind
To be at least expedient,
And, after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient.
(ll. 175-80, pp. 452-3)",2009-11-30 15:42:44 UTC,"""Pursue the theme, and you shall find ... after summing all the rest, / Religion ruling in the breast / A principal ingredient.""",2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","•First published in Bull's Poems, Translated from the French of Madame de la Mothe Guion, by the late William Cowper, Esq. To which are added some original poems of Mr. Cowper, not inserted in his works, Newport Pagnell, 1801",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),15884,5974
"It is content of heart
Gives nature power to please;
The mind that feels no smart
Enlivens all it sees,
Can make a wintry sky
Seem bright as smiling May,
And evening's closing eye
As peep of early day.
(ll. 9-16, p. 23)",2009-09-14 19:45:05 UTC,"The mind may feel a ""smart""",2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","•Can't find in Baird and Ryskamp!? Aha! Titled ""The Lass of Pattie's Mill"" (the tune it is sung to). First printed in Hayley's The Life, and Posthumous Writings, William Cowper, Esqr., 3 vols. ,1803-4.",HDIS,15923,5988
"Close to his cottage lay a garden-ground,
With reeds and osiers sparely girt around;
Small was the spot, but liberal to produce,
Nor wanted aught that serves a peasant's use;
And sometimes even the rich would borrow thence,
Although its tillage was his sole expense.
For oft, as from his toils abroad he ceased,
Home-bound by weather or some stated feast,
His debt of culture here he duly paid,
And only left the plough to wield the spade.
He knew to give each plant the soil it needs,
To drill the ground, and cover close the seeds;
And could with ease compel the wanton rill
To turn, and wind, obedient to his will.
There flourish'd star-wort, and the branching beet,
The sorrel acid, and the mallow sweet,
The skirret, and the leek's aspiring kind,
The noxious poppy--quencher of the mind!
Salubrious sequel of a sumptuous board,
The lettuce, and the long huge-bellied gourd;
But these (for none his appetite controll'd
With stricter sway) the thrifty rustic sold;
With broom-twigs neatly bound, each kind apart,
He bore them ever to the public mart;
Whence, laden still, but with a lighter load,
Of cash well earn'd, he took his homeward road,
Expending seldom, ere he quitted Rome,
His gains, in flesh-meat for a feast at home.
There, at no cost, on onions, rank and red,
Or the curl'd endive's bitter leaf, he fed:
On scallions sliced, or with a sensual gust
On rockets--foul provocatives of lust;
Nor even shunn'd, with smarting gums, to press
Nasturtium, pungent face-distorting mess!
(ll. 77-110, pp. 258-9)",2009-09-14 19:45:05 UTC,"The ""noxious poppy"" is a ""quencher of the mind""",2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","•The poem was much translated in c18 editions but not now thought to be the work of Virgil (Baird and Ryskamp, iii, p. 367).
•First printed in Hayley's The Life, and Posthumous Writings, William Cowper, Esqr., 3 vols. ,1803-4.",HDIS,15924,5989
"Ah, how the human mind wearies herself
With her own wanderings, and, involved in gloom
Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human; laws inscribed on adamant
By laws of man's device, and counsels fixt
For ever, by the hours that pass and die.
(ll. 1-7, p. 139)",2013-06-04 17:01:33 UTC,"""Ah, how the human mind wearies herself / With her own wanderings, and, involved in gloom / Impenetrable, speculates amiss!""",2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Inhabitants,"•From Cowper's Translations of Milton, 1791-2. First printed in Hayley's The Life, and Posthumous Writings, William Cowper, Esqr., 3 vols. ,1803-4.",HDIS (Poetry),15925,5990
"Some fickle creatures boast a soul
True as the needle to the pole;
Yet shifting, like the weather,
The needle's constancy forego
For any novelty, and show
Its variations rather.
",2009-11-30 16:01:39 UTC,"""Some fickle creatures boast a soul / True as the needle to the pole; / Yet shifting, like the weather, / The needle's constancy forego / For any novelty, and show / Its variations rather.""",2009-11-30 15:49:39 UTC,"",Magnetism,,"",INTEREST. A magnet and weather metaphors crossed.,Searching in HDIS (Poetry),17525,5974
"My soul her bondage ill endures;
I pant for liberty like yours;
I long for that immense profound,
That knows no bottom, and no bound;
Lost in infinity, to prove
The incomprehensible of Love.",2012-01-08 22:21:59 UTC,"""My soul her bondage ill endures; / I pant for liberty like yours.""",2012-01-08 19:01:46 UTC,"","",,Fetters,"","Searching ""bond"" and ""soul"" in HDIS (Poetry)",19399,7146