work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6163,Flights of Fancy,"Searching ""imagination"" and ""room"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-08-29 00:00:00 UTC,"Compare Thy works with Heav'n's unerring Word,
And note if nought be sinful, frail, absurd--
Whether its precepts, pure, in every part,
Have mov'd Thy Mind--have influenc'd Thy Heart.
From Reason's dawning, to the recent day,
Did ne'er conception, word, or action, stray?
But every pow'r, and faculty, of Soul,
In every waking moment keep the Whole?
Hast Thou, thro' all that long-protracted length,
Lov'd God with all Thy Heart--Mind--Soul--and Strength?
Hast Thou so manag'd Pow'r, dispos'd of Pelf,
As proves Thou lov'st Thy Neighbour as Thyself?
Ah! Thy proud Buildings publicly declare
What Thy Religion, Love, and Motives, are.
Thy Lawns, Thy Gardens, and Thy Groves, confess,
Thy splendid Furniture--Thy pompous Dress--
Thy crowded Table, and Thy Costly Treat--
Thy brilliant Side-board--and Thy lordly Suite--
Thy public Feastings, and proud Equipage--
All prove what graceless hopes Thy heart engage!
What sensual objects all Thy Soul absorb,
And bind Thy Spirit to this earthly Orb!
Each Passion stir, and stimulate each Lust,
To grasp at emptiness and grapple dust!
Urge on Thy Might, and agitate Thy Mind,
To pounce at shadows, and pursue the wind!
Inflame Affections--whip and spur Thy Will,
For things that ne'er can satisfy, or fill!
Which fetter judgment--rivet Reason's pow'rs,
To what Time terminates, or Death devours!
What Understanding's purest light pervert,
To grope in darkness--grovel in the dirt!
Draw down Ambition from substantial views,
To hunt for empty forms, and fading hues!
Solicit Fancy from celestial flights,
To wander o'er the World for frail delights
And crowd Imagination's rooms, immense,
With what relates alone to Time and Sense!
Faith, still deluded with lov'd Nature's Lies,
And Hope, still eying Earth's deceptive Toys;
Where Charity some cheating trifle spends,
While Folly frustrates Ostentation's ends!",2013-06-04,16311,"•I've included thrice: Crowd, Rooms, Birds
• Reviewed 2009-07-31","""Solicit Fancy from celestial flights, / To wander o'er the World for frail delights / And crowd Imagination's rooms, immense, / With what relates alone to Time and Sense!""",Rooms,2013-06-04 15:23:45 UTC,""
6219,"",HDIS (Poetry),2003-09-27 00:00:00 UTC,"Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw'd,
Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment--hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum'd lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn breezes sing.
Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where's the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet,
And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;
Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring.--
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
(ll. 1-94, p. 223-5)",,16494,"•Ive included the entire poem. A companion to ""Ode to Psyche"" and the ""the gardener Fancy""?
•REVISIT when searching for Fancy. How will I atomize the figurative assertions about fancy?
•I've begun by including thought as a medium through which Fancy moves. (9/27/2003). But what is thought then? Land or air?","""Then let winged Fancy wander / Through the thought still spread beyond her:""",Animals,2013-06-04 17:06:50 UTC,""
7120,"",Reading,2011-10-25 21:29:02 UTC,"CHORUS OF SPIRITS
From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality;
And we breathe, and sicken not,
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and gray,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;
Be it bright as all between
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene;
As the birds within the wind,
As the fish within the wave,
As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float through all above the grave;
We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Through the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee!
(I, ll. 672-91)",,19297,"INTERESTING. Metaphor turned inside out as the similes unroll: the mind is liquid, and the spirits are as liquid as mind... REVISIT.","""And we breathe, and sicken not, / The atmosphere of human thought: / Be it dim, and dank, and gray, / Like a storm-extinguished day, / Travelled o'er by dying gleams; / Be it bright as all between / Cloudless skies and windless streams, / Silent, liquid, and serene; / As the birds within the wind, / As the fish within the wave, / As the thoughts of man's own mind / Float through all above the grave; / We make there our liquid lair, / Voyaging cloudlike and unpent / Through the boundless element.""","",2011-10-25 21:29:02 UTC,Act I
7159,"",Searching in Google Books,2012-01-09 22:36:28 UTC," [...] The carriage soon left the high roads; the hoofs of the horses were not to be heard, and I concluded they were for many miles running over turf. The mind of man, when disturbed, is a chaos, 'without form and void.' His ideas take no shape, or the formation he tries at swiftly dies. Millions of chimeras floated on my imagination all were rejected in speedy succession ere they became old enough to take the colour of reason; yet fancy will be busy till we are no more.
(I, pp. 137-8)",,19435,"","""Millions of chimeras floated on my imagination all were rejected in speedy succession ere they became old enough to take the colour of reason; yet fancy will be busy till we are no more.""","",2012-01-09 22:36:28 UTC,""
6163,"","Searching ""fancy"" and ""beast"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2012-07-03 16:59:00 UTC,"When these resplendent Lights had thus display'd
The shapes and hues of all in Nature made;
The Fish were form'd, depicting Appetites,
And Fowls that soar aloft like Fancy's flights;
Beasts--useful Cattle--Insects--creeping Things--
Which tread the soil, or soar on wavering wings--
That beautify this fair terrestial Ball,
Or, o'er its face, offensive, creep, or crawl;
Resemblances of Man, when form'd at first,
And since his Faculties are fall'n, and curs'd--
When with his pow'rs complete, by God's decree,
Made last, the Sovereign both of Land and Sea.
Made in the image of His blessed Son,
When infant Time, at first, his rounds begun;
Till Hell's dire Murd'rer, and base Liar, beguil'd,
Man's menial Pow'rs, and Body's beauty spoil'd--
His Body doom'd to Pain, and Death at length
While Sin destroy'd his intellectual Strength.
This, deep deprav'd by Vanity and Lust;
That doom'd to perish in its parent Dust--
Yet Man, so ruin'd now, is offer'd, still,
Fresh Pow'rs to execute Heav'n's holy Will--
May be, by humbly asking, still supplied
With heavenly helps, to govern, and to guide;
Not suffering worldly Lust--Pride--Passion--Whim--
Or Sin, or Satan, still to govern him.
Each sinful Habit, daily, to subdue,
By Motives--Pow'rs--and Inclinations, new.
Bless'd benefits! which every Soul may share,
All free, for all, as Water--Light, or Air;
Except perverse with Pride, or dead thro' Doubt,
Men close each avenue to keep them out.
A Spirit, pure! each open'd breast may breathe,
Infus'd, like airy Atmosphere beneath.
A boundless Light! for each Believer free,
Whose intellectual eye's inclin'd to see.
A Fountain, ever full! where, all, that will,
May wash all foulness off, or drink their fill.
Not like the broken Cisterns Man has made,
Where all who seek pure beverage, sigh, betray'd--
Not like the Lamps which Man must feed and trim,
That burn but dull, and soon expire, like Him--
Or filthy fumes of His corrupted breath,
Drench'd with Disease, and fill'd with forms of Death;
But like the breezes breath'd in Eden's bow'rs,
Suffus'd with sweets from spicey fruits, and flow'rs,
With pure Afflatus, offer'd praying Souls,
Which Lust--Pride--Passion--Sickness--Death--controuls.
Like splendour flowing from the new-born Sun,
That o'er those unpolluted regions run;
Which, whether human eye-lids wake, or close,
With heav'nly warmth, and glorious radiance, glows--
Which drew no show'ry cloud from hill, or dell,
Before Earth's rebel Occupiers fell;
But only made a daily mist arise,
To cool the ground, yet not obscure the skies:
Or that fair Fount, with current clear and strong,
That thro' the Garden roll'd its stream along.
And, issuing thence, diffused its fourfold tide,
The Earth to chear and comfort, but divide--
A pure Afflatus ever free for those,
Who ne'er, with wilful crime their nostrils close--
A Light which Heav'n no human Soul denies,
Who shut not, wilfully, their mental eyes--
A Fountain ever flowing o'er its brink,
Where none but Demons are forbid to drink;
None but whose impious obstinacy turns
To drink foul draughts from Nature's earthly Urns.
An heavenly Fount! where each faint Soul, that will,
May surely find, and sweetly drink its fill--
Which feels how feebly Earth's Man's strength maintain,
While striving, still, the Gospel Door to gain,
And dreading death, from Heav'n's impending wrath,
Should he mistake the left for right-hand Path,
Which leads to Salem's pure and peaceful streams,
Man's noblest beverage! Angels' happiest themes!",2013-06-04,19847,Reverse comparison... Fowls are like fancy.,"""When these resplendent Lights had thus display'd / The shapes and hues of all in Nature made; / The Fish were form'd, depicting Appetites, / And Fowls that soar aloft like Fancy's flights; / Beasts--useful Cattle--Insects--creeping Things-- / Which tread the soil, or soar on wavering wings-- / That beautify this fair terrestial Ball, / Or, o'er its face, offensive, creep, or crawl; / Resemblances of Man, when form'd at first, / And since his Faculties are fall'n, and curs'd-- / When with his pow'rs complete, by God's decree, / Made last, the Sovereign both of Land and Sea.""",Beasts,2013-06-04 15:06:31 UTC,""