text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"A thousand various forms the Muse may wear,
(A thousand various forms become the fair,)
But shines in none with more majestic mien
Than when in state she draws the purple scene;
Calls forth her monarchs, bids her heroes rage,
And mourning Beauty melt the crowded stage;
Charms back past ages, gives to Britain's use
The noblest virtues Time did e'er produce;
Leaves famed historians' boasted art behind:
They keep the soul alone; and that's confined,
Sought out with pains, and but by proxy speaks:
The hero's presence deep impression makes;
The scenes his soul and body re-unite,
Furnish a voice, produce him to the sight;
Make our contemporary him that stood
High in renown, perhaps, before the flood;
Make Nestor to this age advice afford,
And Hector for our service draw his sword.",2016-02-16 21:19:13 UTC,"""The hero's presence deep impression makes; / The scenes his soul and body re-unite / Furnish a voice, produce him to the sight.""",2005-05-18 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Impression,"","Searching ""soul"" and ""impression"" in HDIS (Poetry)",10863,4190
" Britannia's state what bounds confine?
(Of rising thought O golden mine!)
Mountains, Alps, streams, gulfs, oceans, set no bound:
She sallies till she strikes the star;
Expanding wide, and launching far
As wind can fly, or rolling wave resound.",2012-01-12 16:10:54 UTC,"""Britannia's state what bounds confine? / (Of rising thought O golden mine!) / Mountains, Alps, streams, gulfs, oceans, set no bound.""",2005-05-27 00:00:00 UTC,The Merchant. Ode the First. On the British Trade and Navigation.,"",2012-01-12,Metal,Not a straightforward metaphor or mind. Rather rising thoughts and depths of mining. Expansiveness as a state of mind?,"Searching ""thought"" and ""gold"" in HDIS (Poetry)",11743,4459
"On all-important time, through every age,
Though much, and warm, the wise have urged, the man
Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour.
""I've lost a day""--the prince who nobly cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown;
""Of Rome?"" say, rather, lord of human race:
He spoke as if deputed by mankind.
So should all speak: so Reason speaks in all.
From the soft whispers of that god in man,
Why fly to Folly, why to Frenzy fly,
For rescue from the blessing we possess?
Time, the supreme!---time is eternity;
Pregnant with all eternity can give;
Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.
Who murders time, he crushes in the birth
A power ethereal, only not adored.
(ll. 96-111, pp. 53-4 in CUP edition)",2013-06-05 20:54:09 UTC,"""So should all speak: so Reason speaks in all. / From the soft whispers of that god in man, / Why fly to Folly, why to Frenzy fly, / For rescue from the blessing we possess?""",2013-06-05 20:54:09 UTC,Night the Second,"",,Inhabitants,"",Reading,20397,7400
"Leave to thy foes these errors, and these ills;
To Nature just, their cause and cure explore.
Not short Heaven's bounty, boundless our expense;
No niggard, Nature; men are prodigals.
We waste, not use, our time; we breathe, not live.
Time wasted is existence, used is life.
And bare existence man, to live ordain'd,
Wrings and oppresses with enormous weight.
And why? Since time was given for use, not waste,
Enjoin'd to fly, with tempest, tide, and stars,
To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man;
Time's use was doom'd a pleasure; waste, a pain;
That man might feel his error, if unseen;
And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure;
Not, blundering, split on idleness for ease.
Life's cares are comforts; such by Heaven design'd;
He that has none, must make them, or be wretched.
Cares are employments; and without employ
The soul is on a rack; the rack of rest,
To souls most adverse; action all their joy.
(ll. 145-164, pp. 54-5 in CUP edition)",2013-06-05 20:56:24 UTC,"""The soul is on a rack; the rack of rest, / To souls most adverse; action all their joy.""",2013-06-05 20:56:24 UTC,Night the Second,"",,"","",Reading,20399,7400
"O treacherous Conscience! while she seems to sleep
On rose and myrtle, lull'd with siren song;
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite the slacken'd rein,
And give us up to licence, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd,---see, from behind her secret stand,
The sly informer minutes every fault,
And her dread diary with horror fills.
Not the gross act alone employs her pen;
She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band,
A watchful foe! the formidable spy,
Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp;
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.
As all-rapacious usurers conceal
Their Doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs;
Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats
Us spendthrifts of inestimable time;
Unnoted, notes each moment misapplied;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brass,
Writes our whole history; which Death shall read
In every pale delinquent's private ear;
And Judgment publish; publish to more worlds
Than this; and endless Age in groans resound.
Lorenzo, such that sleeper in thy breast!
Such is her slumber; and her vengeance such
For slighted counsel; such thy future peace!
And think'st thou still thou canst be wise too soon?
(ll. 256-283, pp. 57-8 in CUP edition)",2013-06-05 21:02:12 UTC,"""Not the gross act alone employs her pen; / She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band, / A watchful foe! the formidable spy, / Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp; / Our dawning purposes of heart explores, / And steals our embryos of iniquity.""",2013-06-05 21:02:12 UTC,Night the Second,"",,Inhabitants,"",Reading,20402,7400
"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)",2013-06-05 21:06:51 UTC,"""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.""",2013-06-05 21:06:51 UTC,Night the Second,"",,Animals and Fetters and Rooms,"",Reading,20404,7400
"But here, Lorenzo, the delusion lies;
That solar shadow, as it measures life,
It life resembles too: Life speeds away
From point to point, though seeming to stand still.
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth:
Too subtle is the movement to be seen;
Yet soon man's hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time:
As these are useless when the sun is set;
So those, but when more glorious Reason shines.
Reason should judge in all; in Reason's eye,
That sedentary shadow travels hard.
But such our gravitation to the wrong,
So prone our hearts to whisper what we wish,
'Tis later with the wise than he's aware;
A Wilmington goes slower than the sun:
And all mankind mistake their time of day;
E'en age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly sown
In furrow'd brows. So gentle life's descent,
We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain.
We take fair days in Winter for the Spring;
And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft
Man must compute that age he cannot feel,
He scarce believes he's older for his years.
Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in store
One disappointment sure, to crown the rest,--
The disappointment of a promised hour.
(ll. 420-446, p. 62 in CUP edition)",2013-06-05 21:11:17 UTC,"""Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time: / As these are useless when the sun is set; / So those, but when more glorious Reason shines. / Reason should judge in all; in Reason's eye, / That sedentary shadow travels hard.""",2013-06-05 21:11:17 UTC,Night the Second,"",,Eye,"",Reading,20407,7400
"DON ALONZO
Oh, what a Pain to think! when every Thought,
Perplexing Thought in Intricacies runs,
And Reason knits th'inextricable Toil
In which her self is taken. I am lost,
Poor Insect that I am, I am involv'd,
And bury'd in the Web my self have wrought.
One Argument is ballanc'd by another,
And Reason Reason meets in doubtful Fight,
And Proofs are countermin'd by equal Proofs.
No more I'll bear this Battel of the Mind,
This inward Anarchy; but find my Wife,
And to her trembling Heart presenting Death,
Force all the Secret from her.
(IV.i, p. 36)",2013-08-17 21:28:05 UTC,"""Oh, what a Pain to think! when every Thought, / Perplexing Thought in Intricacies runs, / And Reason knits th'inextricable Toil / In which her self is taken. I am lost, / Poor Insect that I am, I am involv'd, / And bury'd in the Web my self have wrought.""",2013-08-17 21:28:05 UTC,Act IV,"",,Animals,"",LION,22303,7619
"DON ALONZO
O Zanga! Zanga! --
But I'll not think; for I must act, and thinking
Would ruin me for Action. O the Medley
Of Right and Wrong! the Chaos in my Brain!
He should, and should not dye--You should Obey,
And not Obey.--It is a Day of Darkness,
Of Contradictions, and of many Deaths.
Where's Leonora then? Quick, answer me;
I'm deep in Horrors, I'll be deeper still.--
(V.i, p. 49)",2013-08-17 21:34:11 UTC,"""O the Medley / Of Right and Wrong! the Chaos in my Brain! / He should, and should not dye-- / You should Obey, / And not Obey.--It is a Day of Darkness, / Of Contradictions, and of many Deaths.""",2013-08-17 21:34:11 UTC,Act V,"",,"","",LION,22307,7619
"ZANGA
I told her, from your Childhood you was wont
On any great Surprize, but chiefly then
When cause of Sorrow bore it Company,
To have your Passion shake the Seat of Reason,
A momentary Ill, which soon blew o'er.
Then did I tell her of Don Carlos' Death,
(Wisely suppressing by what means he fell)
And laid the Blame on that. At first she doubted;
But such the honest Artifice I us'd,
And such her ardent Wish it should be true,
That she, at length, was fully satisfy'd.
(V.ii, p. 51)",2013-08-17 21:35:26 UTC,"""I told her, from your Childhood you was wont / On any great Surprize, but chiefly then / When cause of Sorrow bore it Company, / To have your Passion shake the Seat of Reason, / A momentary Ill, which soon blew o'er.""",2013-08-17 21:35:26 UTC,Act V,"",,Throne,"",LION,22308,7619