work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7116,"","Reading Samuel Johnson's ""Life of Young""",2011-10-20 15:24:45 UTC,"At this the Muse shall Kindle, and Aspire:
My breast, O WALPOLE, glows with grateful fire
The streams of Royal bounty, turn'd by Thee,
Refresh the dry domains of poesy.
My fortune shows, when Arts are WALPOLE's care,
What slender worth forbids us to despair:
Be this thy partial smile from censure free;
'Twas meant for Merit, though it fell on Me.
(pp. 5-6)",,19276,"","""My breast, O WALPOLE, glows with grateful fire / The streams of Royal bounty, turn'd by Thee, / Refresh the dry domains of poesy.""","",2011-10-20 15:24:45 UTC,""
7399,"",Reading,2013-06-05 19:41:01 UTC,"Yet man (fool man!) here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh;
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by Heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there
Where seraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow
In His full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire!
And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
(ll. 135-154, pp. 40-1 in CUP edition)",,20389,"","""A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.""","",2013-06-05 19:41:01 UTC,Night the First
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:07:56 UTC,"Where shall I find him? Angels! tell me where.
You know him: he is near you: point him out:
Shall I see glories beaming from his brow,
Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers?
Your golden wings, now hovering o'er him, shed
Protection; now are waving in applause
To that blest Son of Foresight! Lord of Fate!
That awful Independent on To-morrow!
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past;
Whose yesterdays look backward with a smile;
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly;
That common, but opprobrious lot! Past hours,
If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight,
If folly bounds our prospect by the grave,
All feeling of futurity benumb'd;
All god-like passion for eternals quench'd;
All relish of realities expired;
Renounced all correspondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire;
In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar;
Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust;
Dismounted every great and glorious aim;
Embruted every faculty divine;
Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world:
The world, that gulf of souls, immortal souls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire
To reach the distant skies, and triumph there
On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed;
Though we from earth, ethereal they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man.
(ll. 325-354, pp. 59-60 in CUP edition)",,20405,"","""Souls [are] elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire / To reach the distant skies, and triumph there / On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed; / Though we from earth, ethereal they that fell.""",Animals,2013-06-05 21:07:56 UTC,Night the Second
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:12:22 UTC,"On this, or similar, Philander!--thou
Whose mind was moral as the Preacher's tongue,
And strong to wield all science worth the name;--
How often we talk'd down the summer's sun,
And cool'd our passions by the breezy stream!
How often thaw'd and shorten'd winter's eve,
By conflict kind, that struck out latent truth,
Best found, so sought; to the recluse more coy!
Thoughts disentangle, passing o'er the lip;
Clean runs the thread; if not, 'tis thrown away
Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song;
Song, fashionably fruitless; such as stains
The fancy, and unhallow'd passion fires;
Chiming her saints to Cytherea's fane.
(ll. 447-460, pp. 62-3)",,20408,"","""Thoughts disentangle, passing o'er the lip; / Clean runs the thread; if not, 'tis thrown away / Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song; / Song, fashionably fruitless; such as stains / The fancy, and unhallow'd passion fires; / Chiming her saints to Cytherea's fane.""","",2013-06-05 21:12:22 UTC,Night the Second
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:25:02 UTC,"Know'st thou, Lorenzo, what a friend contains?
As bees mix'd nectar draw from fragrant flowers,
So men, from FRIENDSHIP, wisdom and delight;
Twins tied by Nature, if they part, they die.
Hast thou no friend to set thy mind abroach?
Good sense will stagnate. Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.
Had thought been all, sweet speech had been denied;
Speech, thought's canal! speech, thought's criterion too!
Thought in the mine may come forth gold or dross;
When coin'd in word, we know its real worth.
If sterling, store it for thy future use;
'Twill buy thee benefit; perhaps, renown.
Thought, too, deliver'd, is the more possess'd:
Teaching we learn; and giving we retain
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;
Speech burnishes our mental magazine,
Brightens for ornament, and whets for use.
What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie,
Plunged to the hilts in venerable tomes,
And rusted in; who might have borne an edge,
And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech;
If born blest heirs of half their mother's tongue!
'Tis thought's exchange which, like the' alternate push
Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum,
And defecates the student's standing pool.
(ll. 461-487, p. 63 in CUP edition)",,20413,"","""Speech ventilates our intellectual fire; / Speech burnishes our mental magazine, / Brightens for ornament, and whets for use.""","",2013-06-05 21:25:02 UTC,Night the Second
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:32:16 UTC,"Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines,
And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive,--
What is she but the means of happiness?
That unobtain'd, than Folly more a fool;
A melancholy fool, without her bells.
Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives
The precious end which makes our wisdom wise.
Nature, in zeal for human amity,
Denies or damps an undivided joy.
Joy is an import; joy is an exchange;
Joy flies monopolists; it calls for two;
Rich fruit, heaven-planted, never pluck'd by one!
Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give
To social man true relish of himself.
Full on ourselves descending in a line,
Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight:
Delight intense is taken by rebound;
Reverberated pleasures fire the breast.
(ll. 498-515, p. 64 in CUP edition)",,20417,"","""Full on ourselves descending in a line, / Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight: / Delight intense is taken by rebound; / Reverberated pleasures fire the breast.""","",2013-06-05 21:32:16 UTC,Night the Second
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:35:52 UTC,"Celestial Happiness, whene'er she stoops
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent heaven,--the bosom of a friend;
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each other's pillow to repose divine.
Beware the counterfeit: in Passion's flame
Hearts melt; but melt like ice, soon harder froze.
True love strikes root in Reason, Passion's foe:
Virtue alone entenders us for life;
I wrong her much--entenders us for ever:
Of Friendship's fairest fruits, the fruit most fair
Is Virtue kindling at a rival fire,
And emulously rapid in her race.
O the soft enmity! endearing strife!
This carries friendship to her noon-tide point,
And gives the rivet of eternity.
(ll. 516-532, pp. 64-5 in CUP edition)",,20419,"","""Beware the counterfeit: in Passion's flame / Hearts melt; but melt like ice, soon harder froze.""","",2013-06-05 21:35:52 UTC,Night the Second
7619,"",LION,2013-08-17 20:52:38 UTC,"DON CARLOS
Alonzo's Glory, and the Moors Defeat.
The Field is strow'd with twice ten thousand slain,
Tho' he suspects his Measures were betray'd.
He'll soon arrive. O, how I long to embrace
The first of Heroes, and the best of Friends!--
I lov'd fair Leonora long before
The Chance of Battel gave me to the Moors,
From whom so late Alonzo set me Free;
And while I groan'd in Bondage, I deputed
This Great Alonzo, whom her Father honours,
To be my gentle Advocate in Love,
To stir her Heart, and fan its Fires for me.
(I.i, pp. 3-4)",,22294,"","""I lov'd fair Leonora long before / The Chance of Battel gave me to the Moors, / From whom so late Alonzo set me Free; / And while I groan'd in Bondage, I deputed / This Great Alonzo, whom her Father honours, / To be my gentle Advocate in Love, / To stir her Heart, and fan its Fires for me.""","",2013-08-17 20:52:38 UTC,Act I
7619,"",LION,2013-08-17 20:55:41 UTC,"ZANGA
Why, that is well--go fetch my Tablets hither.
Two Nights ago, my Father's sacred Shade
Thrice stalk'd around my Bed, and smil'd upon me,
He smil'd, a Joy then little understood--
It must be so--and if so, it is Vengeance
Worth waking of the Dead for.
[Re-enter Isabella with the Tablets, Zanga writes, then reads as to himself.]
Thus it stands--
The Father's fixt--Don Carlos cannot wed--
Alonzo may--but that will hurt his Friend--
Nor can he ask his leave--or if he did,
He might not gain it--it is hard to give
Our own Consent to Ills, tho' we must bear them.--
Were it not then a Master-piece, worth all
The Wisdom I can boast, first to persuade
Alonzo to request it of his Friend,
His Friend to grant--then from that very Grant,
The strongest Proof of Friendship Man can give,
(And other Motives) to work out a Cause
Of Jealousy; to rack Alonzo's Peace?--
I have turn'd o'er the Catalogue of Woes,
Which sting the Heart of Man, and find none equal.
It is the Hydra of Calamities,
The Seven-fold Death. The Jealous are the damn'd.
O Jealousy! Each other Passion's calm
To thee, thou Conflagration of the Soul!
Thou King of Torments! Thou grand Counterpoize
For all the Transports Beauty can inspire!
(II.i, p. 16)",,22296,"","""Each other Passion's calm / To thee, thou Conflagration of the Soul""","",2013-08-17 20:55:41 UTC,Act II
7619,"",LION,2013-08-17 21:38:00 UTC,"ZANGA
Must I despise Thee too as well as hate Thee?
Complain of Grief? Complain Thou art a Man.
Priam from Fortune's lofty Summit fell,
Great Alexander 'midst his Conquests mourn'd,
Heroes and Demigods have known their Sorrows,
Cæsars have wept, and I have had my Blow:
But 'tis Reveng'd, and now my Work is done.
Yet, e'er I fall, be it one part of Vengeance,
To make ev'n Thee confess that I am just.
Thou see'st a Prince, whose Father thou hast Slain,
Whose Native Country thou hast laid in Blood,
Whose Sacred Person, Oh, thou hast prophan'd!
Whose Reign extinguish'd; What was left to me
So highly born! No Kingdom, but Revenge;
No Treasure, but thy Tortures, and thy Groans.
If Men shall ask who brought thee to thy End,
Tell them, The Moor, and they will not despise thee.
If cold white Mortals censure this great Deed,
Warn them, they judge not of superior Beings
Souls made of Fire, and Children of the Sun,
With whom Revenge is Virtue. Fare thee well--
Now fully satisfy'd I should take leave;
But one thing grieves me, since thy Death is near,
I eave thee my Example how to dye.
(V.ii, p. 61)",,22309,"","""If cold white Mortals censure this great Deed, / Warn them, they judge not of superior Beings / Souls made of Fire, and Children of the Sun, / With whom Revenge is Virtue.""",Fire,2013-08-17 21:38:00 UTC,Act V