text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Was Jesus Humble or did he
Give any Proofs of Humility
Boast of high Things with Humble tone
And give with Charity a Stone
When but a Child he ran away
And left his Parents in dismay
When they had wanderd three days long
These were the words upon his tongue
No Earthly Parents I confess
I am doing my Fathers business
When the rich learned Pharisee
Came to consult him secretly
Upon his heart with Iron pen
He wrote Ye must be born again
He was too proud to take a bribe
He spoke with authority not like a Scribe
He says with most consummate Art
Follow me I am meek & lowly of heart
As that is the only way to escape
The Misers net & the Gluttons trap
What can be done with such desperate Fools
Who follow after the Heathen Schools
I was standing by when Jesus died
What I calld Humility they calld Pride
He who loves his Enemies betrays his Friends
This surely is not what Jesus intends
But the sneaking Pride of Heroic Schools
And the Scribes & Pharisees Virtuous Rules
For he acts with honest triumphant Pride
And this is the cause that Jesus died
He did not die with Christian Ease
Asking pardon of his Enemies
If he had Caiphas would forgive
Sneaking submission can always live
He had only to say that God was the devil
And the devil was God like a Christian Civil
Mild Christian regrets to the devil confess
For affronting him thrice in the Wilderness
He had soon been bloody Caesars Elf
And at last he would have been Caesar himself
Like dr Priestly & Bacon & Newton
Poor Spiritual Knowledge is not worth a button
For thus the Gospel Sr Isaac confutes
God can only be known by his Attributes
And as for the Indwelling of the Holy Ghost
Or of Christ & his Father its all a boast
And Pride & Vanity of the imagination
That disdains to follow this Worlds Fashion
To teach doubt & Experiment
Certainly was not what Christ meant
What was he doing all that time
From twelve years old to manly prime
Was he then Idle or the Less
About his Fathers business
Or was his wisdom held in scorn
Before his wrath began to burn
In Miracles throughout the Land
That quite unnervd Caiaphas hand
If he had been Antichrist Creeping Jesus
Hed have done any thing to please us
Gone sneaking into Synagogues
And not usd the Elders & Priests like dogs
But Humble as a Lamb or Ass
Obeyd himself to Caiaphas
God wants not Man to Humble himself
This is the trick of the ancient Elf
This is the Race that Jesus ran
Humble to God Haughty to Man
Cursing the Rulers before the People
Even to the temples highest Steeple
And when he Humbled himself to God
Then descended the Cruel Rod
If thou humblest thyself thou humblest me
Thou also dwellst in Eternity
Thou art a Man God is no more
Thy own humanity learn to adore
For that is my Spirit of Life
Awake arise to Spiritual Strife
And thy Revenge abroad display
In terrors at the Last Judgment day
Gods Mercy & Long Suffering
Is but the Sinner to Judgment to bring
Thou on the Cross for them shalt pray
And take Revenge at the Last Day
Jesus replied & thunders hurld
I never will Pray for the World
Once [I] did so when I prayd in the Garden
I wishd to take with me a Bodily Pardon
Can that which was of woman born
In the absence of the Morn
When the Soul fell into Sleep
And Archangels round it weep
Shooting out against the Light
Fibres of a deadly night
Reasoning upon its own dark Fiction
In doubt which is Self Contradiction
Humility is only doubt
And does the Sun & Moon blot out
Rooting over with thorns & stems
The buried Soul & all its Gems.
This Lifes dim Windows of the Soul
Distorts the Heavens from Pole to Pole
And leads you to Believe a Lie
When you see with not thro the Eye
That was born in a night to perish in a night
When the Soul slept in the beams of Light.",2013-09-23 17:26:24 UTC,"""Upon his heart with Iron pen / He wrote Ye must be born again.""",2005-06-07 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","•Cross-reference: There's another ""iron pen"" in Keach.","Searching ""heart"" and ""iron"" in HDIS (Poetry)",8617,3344
"""E'er you this sacred gift receive
""Your Father will have ceas'd to live:
""I'm hast'ning fast unto the Bourn
""From which no Trav'ler can return:
""But e'er I to the Tomb depart,
""I write the counsels of my heart,
""And my last prayer devotion pours,
""That they may be engrav'd on your's.
""--Instructions sage refine the soul
""Conveying inward, as they roll,
""Impulse to Virtue, and impart
""What guides the mind and forms the heart.
""When morals fail, what stains disgrace
""The honours of the noblest race;
""For what are laws unless obey'd
""By the same virtues they were made.
""When Life is view'd with all its cares,
""When we feel what our nature shares,
""The truth strikes home upon the mind,
""That happiness is not design'd
""For this uncertain, transient state:
""Man should be good, and may be great;
""But perfect joy is only given
""To be the inhabitant of Heaven.
""What pleasures does the world hold forth?
""What is the gawdy nonsense worth,
""Which Fashion and gay Fortune weave
""The idle moments to deceive!
""What is it but a meteor's blaze
""That onward darts, and never stays?
""A vapour, rising in the air,
""And soon is lost dissolving there;--
""A bubble, swelling in the stream,
""That bursts while glitt'ring in the beam;--
""A spider's web, that treach'rous snare,
""Which e'en the slightest touch will tear!
""--In Spring, cold Winter melts away;
""The Spring is lost in Summer's ray:
""The Summer wastes in Autumn's reign,
""And hoary Winter comes again.
""The Moon renews her borrow'd light,
""And when Life's day sinks into night,
""Where all the rich, the great are laid
""We're nought but ashes and a shade[1]:
""To Time all mortal things must bow--
""Henry will be what I am now.
""Your cheeks e'er hollow wrinkles seize,
""E'er their bright, rosy bloom decays,
""While youth yet rolls its vital flood,
""Learn to be virtuous--to be good.
""He is most happy, who can say
""To Virtue, I have liv'd to-day,
""And then, to baffle future sorrow,
""Resolves to live the same to-morrow.
""--Rest not on happiness below,
""For Man must have his share of woe:
""His lot distinct from brutes appears
""Less by his laughter than his tears.
""The famous Fabulist of old,
""Who so much wisdom did unfold,
""That lively, gay, instructor sage,
""Who held a glass for every age,
""Has said, in his fictitious way,
""That when Prometheus mix'd the clay
""To make the human form appear,
""He moisten'd it with many a tear.
""But Heaven is ever just and wise
""In all man's checquer'd destinies.
""Though Virtue's steps may lead to pain,
""And vexing Fortune's fretful reign;
""Yet, though she moves 'mid scenes of woe,
""Amid the thorns the roses blow,
""Which, when the wintry sorrow's past,
""Will still in bloom and beauty last.
""--With wisdom then thy heart relieve
""Whene'er that heart finds cause to grieve;
""With wisdom drawn from sacred lore
""And sages fam'd in days of yore.
""Nor seek the letter'd page alone;
""By calming many a bitter moan
""In other breasts, appease your own.
""With pleasure, by good sense refin'd,
""Unbend the labours of the mind.
""Without enthusiastic zeal,
""Let piety its deeds reveal:
""Let your devotion pure belie
""Each symptom of hypocrisy:
""From Charity let offerings flow
""Without a wish the poor should know
""The hand that does the boon bestow.
""Humility, in every state,
""Will make us good, will make us great;
""For real greatness does not spring
""From titles vain or earthly thing:
""By Virtue's power alone is given
""The true Nobility of Heaven.
""--Contentment, to our lot confin'd,
""Is the true wisdom of the mind;
""And when our passions are subdu'd,
""Truth will aver that we are good.
""--Shun Gaming, that most odious vice:
""Trust not to cards;--detest the dice:
""Look at your woods that crown the glade,
""In the proud stateliness of shade:
""By one unlucky, treacherous main
""They may lie prostrate on the plain.
""--Turn from the Syren's painted joy
""That only tempts thee to destroy:
""Health, Honour, Virtue, Fortune fly
""Where she displays her Sorcery.",2009-09-14 19:46:42 UTC,"One may ""write the counsels of my heart"" so ""That they may be engrav'd on"" another's heart
",2005-03-09 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","","Searching ""soul"" and ""engrav"" in HDIS (Poetry)",16385,6196
"COGNOVIT.
Talk not of sincerity, madam. If I could rip up my heart and lay it at your feet, you would read engrav'd on it in capital letters your own adorable name. Thus, madam, let me fall at your feet and swear--",2009-09-14 19:46:42 UTC,"""If I could rip up my heart and lay it at your feet, you would read engrav'd on it in capital letters your own adorable name""",2005-03-09 00:00:00 UTC,"Act I, scene iv","",,"",•INTEREST,"Searching ""engrav"" and ""heart"" in HDIS (Drama)",16386,6197
"My mind became the book through which I grew
Wise in all human wisdom, and its cave,
Which like a mine I rifled through and through,
To me the keeping of its secrets gave --
One mind, the type of all, the moveless wave
Whose calm reflects all moving things that are,
Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,
And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear;
Justice, and truth, and time, and the world's natural sphere.
(VII, ll. 3100-8)",2009-09-14 19:46:49 UTC,"""My mind became the book through which I grew / Wise in all human wisdom""",2006-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"Canto VII, Stanza XXXI","",,"","","Reading Reisner, Thomas A. ""Tablua Rasa: Shelley's Metaphor of Mind."" Ariel IV.2 (197): 90-102. p. 92.",16420,6203
"Not until my dream became
Like a child's legend on the tideless sand.
Which the first foam erases half, and half
Leaves legible. At length I rose, and went,
Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought 155
To set new cuttings in the empty urns,
And when I came to that beside the lattice,
I saw two little dark-green leaves
Lifting the light mould at their birth, and then
I half-remembered my forgotten dream.",2009-09-14 19:46:51 UTC,"""Not until my dream became / Like a child's legend on the tideless sand. / Which the first foam erases half, and half / Leaves legible""",2006-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"",•I've included twice: Legend and Sand,"Reading Reisner, Thomas A. ""Tablua Rasa: Shelley's Metaphor of Mind."" Ariel IV.2 (197): 90-102. p. 95.",16427,6206
"'""Disguise it not--ye blush for what ye hate,
And Enmity is sister unto Shame;
Look on your mind--it is the book of fate--
Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name
Of misery--all are mirrors of the same;
But the dark fiend who with his iron pen
Dipped in scorn's fiery poison, makes his fame
Enduring there, would o'er the heads of men
Pass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.
(ll. 3370-8)",2009-09-14 19:46:51 UTC,"""Look on your mind--it is the book of fate-- / Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name / Of misery--all are mirrors of the same""",2006-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"Canto VII, Stanza 20","",,"",•I've included twice: Book and Mirror,"Reading Reisner, Thomas A. ""Tablua Rasa: Shelley's Metaphor of Mind."" Ariel IV.2 (197): 90-102. p. 98.",16428,6203
"""Then spoke the spirit--George, I pray, attend--
""'First, let all doubts of thy religion end--
""'The word reveal'd is true: enquire no more,
""'Believe in meekness, and with thanks adore:
""'Thy priest attend, but not in all rely,
""'And to objectors seek for no reply:
""'Truth, doubt, and error, will be mix'd below--
""'Be thou content the greater truths to know,
""'And in obedience rest thee--For thy life
""'Thou needest counsel--now a happy wife,
""'A widow soon! and then, my sister, then
""'Think not of marriage, think no more of men;--
""'Life will have comforts; thou wilt much enjoy
""'Of moderate good, then do not this destroy;
""'Fear much, and wed no more; by passion led,
""'Shouldst thou again'--Art thou attending?--'wed,
""'Care in thy ways will growl, and anguish haunt thy bed:
""'A brother's warning on thy heart engrave:
""'Thou art a mistress--then be not a slave!
""'Shouldst thou again that hand in fondness give,
""'What life of misery art thou doom'd to live!
""'How wilt thou weep, lament, implore, complain!
""'How wilt thou meet derision and disdain!
""'And pray to Heaven in doubt, and kneel to man in vain!
""'Thou read'st of woes to tender bosoms sent--
""'Thine shall with tenfold agony be rent;
""'Increase of anguish shall new years bestow,
""'Pain shall on thought and grief on reason grow,
""'And this th' advice I give increase the ill I show.'
",2009-09-14 19:46:56 UTC,"""A brother's warning on thy heart engrave""",2005-03-08 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","","Searching ""heart"" and ""engrav"" in HDIS (Poetry)",16460,6213
"MAHMUD
The times do cast strange shadows
On those who watch and who must rule their course,
Lest they, being first in peril as in glory,
Be whelmed in the fierce ebb:--and these are of them.
Thrice has a gloomy vision hunted me
As thus from sleep into the troubled day;
It shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea,
Leaving no figure upon memory's glass.
Would that--no matter. Thou didst say thou knewest
A Jew, whose spirit is a chronicle
Of strange and secret and forgotten things.
I bade thee summon him:--'tis said his tribe
Dream, and are wise interpreters of dreams.
(ll. 124-136)",2009-09-14 19:47:07 UTC,"""Thou didst say thou knewest / A Jew, whose spirit is a chronicle / Of strange and secret and forgotten things.""",2006-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","","Reading Reisner, Thomas A. ""Tablua Rasa: Shelley's Metaphor of Mind."" Ariel IV.2 (197): 90-102. p. 98.",16515,6232
"The Doctor thought to steal away, As he was wont, by break of day; But Lady Bounty's rank and station Had check'd the vulgar inclination,And he determin'd to regret, With all due form and etiquette, In looks that mourn and words that grieve, That he was forc'd to take his leave. --The morning came, the breakfast o'er, Phillis and Punch were at the door:When Syntax, in respectful tone, Made all his grateful wishes known, While ev'ry hope words could express For health, long life and happiness,Follow'd in due and stated course, With solemn, modulated force. Then her right hand he gently drew, Kiss'd it, and bow'd, and said ""Adieu.""--Affected by this tender grace A tear stole gently down her face;And wiping her be-moisten'd eye, She offer'd this sincere reply: ""--Doctor, your virtues I revere, And wish your stay were longer here:Doctor, your learning I admire, And much I grieve that you retire:Your piety involves my heart, And I lament that you depart. But still I thank the happy chance, That did your wand'ring steps advanceTo where I pass my tranquil days In striving humble worth to raise, And in the circuit of my power, To cheer the poor man's toilsome hour;In youthful minds the seed to sow Of virtue, and where thistles grow To pluck them, that they may not spoil The fruits produc'd by honest toil; Nay, I am proud, that my great view Has been approv'd and prais'd by you.And while I wish you ev'ry good, I thus my kind farewell conclude:--Here whensoe'er you wish to come This house will prove a real home: Come when you will, bring whom you may, And, as you please, prolong your stay:You'll have the welcome of my heart; Nor go, till I pronounce depart.""--She now presented to his hand A cover rich with velvet band,Where taste must have been proud to ply Its needle in embroidery.A clasp, enrich'd with gold, confin'd The memoranda of the mind,Which on the inmost page so white, The ready pencil might indite. ""Take this,"" she said, ""and when your thought Is with a sudden image fraught,--Inscribe it here and let it live, Nor be a hasty fugitive:It thence may gain a passage free To dwell within your memory: And at those moments do not spare, For your warm friend a transient prayer.""",2009-09-14 19:48:02 UTC,"""The memoranda of the mind, Which on the inmost page so white, The ready pencil might indite. ""Take this,"" she said, ""and when your thought Is with a sudden image fraught,--Inscribe it here and let it live, Nor be a hasty fugitive:It thence may gain a passage free To dwell within your memory:""",2005-05-27 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),16804,6346
"[...] From the first time I ever cast my eyes on any thing of Burke's (which was an extract from his Letter to a Noble Lord in a three-times a week paper, The St. James's Chronicle, in 1796), I said to myself, ""This is true eloquence: this is a man pouring out his mind on paper."" All other style seemed to me pedantic and impertinent. Dr. Johnson's was walking on stilts; and even Junius's (who was at that time a favourite with me) with all his terseness, shrunk up into little antithetic points and well-trimmed sentences. But Burke's style was forked and playful as the lightning, crested like the serpent. He delivered plain things on a plain ground; but when he rose, there was no end of his flights and circumgyrations--and in this very Letter, ""he, like an eagle in a dove-cot, fluttered his Volscians"" (the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale*) ""in Corioli."" I did not care for his doctrines. I was then, and am still, proof against their contagion; but I admired the author, and was considered as not a very staunch partisan of the opposite side, though I thought myself that an abstract proposition was one thing — a masterly transition, a brilliant metaphor, another. I conceived too that he might be wrong in his main argument, and yet deliver fifty truths in arriving at a false conclusion. I remember Coleridge assuring me, as a poetical and political set-off to my sceptical admiration, that Wordsworth had written an Essay on Marriage, which, for manly thought and nervous expression, he deemed incomparably superior. As I had not, at that time, seen any specimens of Mr. Wordsworth's prose style, I could not express my doubts on the subject. If there are greater prose-writers than Burke, they either lie out of my course of study, or are beyond my sphere of comprehension. I am too old to be a convert to a new mythology of genius. The niches are occupied, the tables are full. If such is still my admiration of this man's misapplied powers, what must it have been at a time when I myself was in vain trying, year after year, to write a single Essay, nay, a single page or sentence; when I regarded the wonders of his pen with the longing eyes of one who was dumb and a changeling; and when, to be able to convey the slightest conception of my meaning to others in words, was the height of an almost hopeless ambition! But I never measured others' excellences by my own defects: though a sense of my own incapacity, and of the steep, impassable ascent from me to them, made me regard them with greater awe and fondness. I have thus run through most of my early studies and favourite authors, some of whom I have since criticised more at large. Whether those observations will survive me, I neither know nor do I much care: but to the works themselves, ""worthy of all acceptation,"" and to the feelings they have always excited in me since I could distinguish a meaning in language, nothing shall ever prevent me from looking back with gratitude and triumph. To have lived in the cultivation of an intimacy with such works, and to have familiarly relished such names, is not to have lived quite in vain.
(pp. 80-2)
",2012-07-24 19:55:02 UTC,"""I said to myself, 'This is true eloquence: this is a man pouring out his mind on paper.'""",2012-07-24 19:55:02 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,19893,7305