work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6164,Face and Mind,HDIS,2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"In language warm as could be breathed or penn'd
Thy picture speaks the original my friend,
Not by those looks that indicate thy mind,
They only speak thee friend of all mankind;
Expression here more soothing still I see,
That friend of all a partial friend to me .
(ll. 1-6, p. 191)",,16330,"•More minds and faces. See previous entry.
•First printed in Poems, by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. in Three Volumes. Vol III. Containing his posthumous poetry, and a sketch of his life. By his kinsman, John Johnson, LL.D., 1815.",The mind may be indicated by looks,"",2009-09-14 19:46:32 UTC,""
6173,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2006-02-22 00:00:00 UTC,"IT has been said, that Man, by Nature,
Is but a superstitious Creature.
If I err not, 'twas Burke's opinion,
And he may seem to claim dominion,
As a Philosopher and Sage,
In this illuminated age,
Which his superior mind adorn'd,
And through whose years he will be mourn'd;
Nor in what doth to Man belong,
Am I dispos'd to think him wrong,
--If we look through th'historic page,
And travel on from Age to Age,
It will to our research appear,
As the Meridian Phoebus clear
What notions strange, Men have conceiv'd
What contraries they have believ'd:
In ev'ry time, 'neath ev'ry sky,
We see the same Credulity.
The Pagan Augurs swore they knew
Why Birds or this or that way flew;
And Oracles proclaim'd the Law
To keep the vulgar Folk in awe,
While the keen Conj'rors of the State
Assum'd to know the will of Fate.
The monkish Ages then succeed,
Govern'd by superstition's creed,
When mystic men in holy robe,
O'er-run one quarter of the globe:--
Nay, in this most enlighten'd Age,
So philosophic and so sage,
When Knowledge is so much the rage,
E'en now we see the human mind,
On many strange occasions blind:
Not when she chuses to dispense
Her pleasures to each diff'rent sense,
But, as she in her fancy varies,
Her idle whimsies and vagaries.",,16342,"","""E'en now we see the human mind, / On many strange occasions blind""",Metal,2009-09-14 19:46:34 UTC,""
6189,Mind's Eye; Dreams,HDIS,2003-09-19 00:00:00 UTC,"When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my ""mind's eye"" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.
Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof.
Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chace him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!
Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
In the long vista of the years to roll,
Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed--
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!
Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!
And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head.
(ll. 1-48, p. 6-7)
",,16367,"•Ive included the entire poem
•""Mind's eye"" is from Hamlet I.i.112, ii.185","""When no fair dreams before my ""mind's eye"" flit, / And the bare heath of life presents no bloom; / Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed, / And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.""",Eye,2009-09-14 19:46:39 UTC,""
6193,"",HDIS (Poetry),2003-09-26 00:00:00 UTC,"They should not know thee, who athirst to gain
A noble end, are thirsty every hour.
What though I am not wealthy in the dower
Of spanning wisdom; though I do not know
The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow
Hither and thither all the changing thoughts
Of man: though no great minist'ring reason sorts
Out the dark mysteries of human souls
To clear conceiving: yet there ever rolls
A vast idea before me, and I glean
Therefrom my liberty; thence too I've seen
The end and aim of Poesy. 'Tis clear
As any thing most true; as that the year
Is made of the four seasons--manifest
As a large cross, some old cathedral's crest,
Lifted to the white clouds. Therefore should I
Be but the essence of deformity,
A coward, did my very eye-lids wink
At speaking out what I have dared to think.
Ah! rather let me like a madman run
Over some precipice; let the hot sun
Melt my Dedalian wings, and drive me down
Convuls'd and headlong! Stay! an inward frown
Of conscience bids me be more calm awhile.
An ocean dim, sprinkled with many an isle,
Spreads awfully before me.
(ll. 282-307, p. 44-5)",2007-12-15,16371,REVISIT. Rich passage. ,"""Stay! an inward frown / Of conscience bids me be more calm awhile.""","",2009-09-14 19:46:40 UTC,""
6196,Mind's Eye,Searching HDIS (Poetry),2004-06-15 00:00:00 UTC,"""No harsh, pedantic Censor I,
""To preach up gloomy Sanctity;
""Youth's lively season claims its pleasure,
""But just in mode and wise in measure,
""Whose hours, by Virtue's smiles refin'd,
""Leave no regrets or pain behind.
""Court the gay Muse to whom belong
""The chasten'd jest, the pleasing song;
""But would you nobler thoughts inspire,
""The Masters of the Grecian Lyre,
""Or Latian Bards, by Phoebus taught,
""Will please and elevate the thought.
""Nor ask their powerful aid alone;--
""Join those we proudly call our own:
""Immortal Shakespeare--Milton's rhyme,
""That soars beyond the bounds of Time;
""With Dryden, in whose verse we trace
""A blended energy and grace;
""And Pope, whose sweet harmonious lays
""The mind delights in, and obeys;
""With Gray, in Elegiac pride,
""And the free verse of Akenside.
""--These, as they charm, with taste refin'd
""Will decorate the expanding mind;
""And thus a secret grace convey
""To all you do, and all you say;
""Smooth the dull brow of wrinkling care,
""And chase the thought that may ensnare.
""--Nor these alone, th'historic page,
""Of ev'ry race, of every age,
""Displays the long and various story:
""Heroes that liv'd or died in glory,
""Patriots, who their country sav'd,
""Tyrants, who mankind enslav'd,
""Sages, whose high-gifted powers
""That knowledge taught which now is ours,
""The Pictures form of human kind,
""Of every feeling of the mind,
""As in social man we see,
""Or the wide range of Policy;--
""Hence they a sage experience give,
""E'en to the times in which we live;
""And frame a Lesson to supply
""The Ages of Posterity.
""--With these Instructors may be join'd
""To strengthen and enrich the mind,
""Science, whose powers profound impart,
""Whate'er of nature and of art
""Presents to th'intellectual eye,
""In all the vast variety:
""While Philosophic Lore combines
""The various Labour, and confines
""In their due regulated sphere
""The essential parts of Character;
""And, as the Mistress of the Soul,
""Let mild Religion crown the whole:--
""That power, which commands the thought
""To think the very thing we ought;
""And holds up to our solemn view
""What we should shun, and what pursue.
""--O let not Sloth depress to earth
""Those early blossoms in their birth,
""Which to your ripening mind is given,
""To bloom through time, then rise to heaven!
""Awake your nature and expand
""Its powers; with attentive hand
""Prune its Luxuriance; and prepare
""Each branch the expected Fruit to bear.
""But think not in your jovial hours,
""When Riot rules and Reason lours,
""That time is actively employ'd:
""'Tis then, I say, that Time's destroy'd,
""At least, e'en Truth itself may say,
""'Tis wasted, squander'd, thrown away:
""For Folly's vigour and excess
""Is nought but active Idleness.",2011-11-24,16377,"","""With these Instructors may be join'd / To strengthen and enrich the mind, / Science, whose powers profound impart, / Whate'er of nature and of art / Presents to th'intellectual eye, / In all the vast variety.""",Eye,2011-11-25 01:19:18 UTC,""
6196,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2005-03-28 00:00:00 UTC,"Thus will the mental artist scan
The changeful state and powers of man:
Each various being will display
Inform'd with Life and Reason's ray;
And his weak, feebler force combine
With strength and energy divine.
He views him groveling, sad and low,
The child of misery and woe:
Anon he sees him rich and great,
Clothed in the plenitude of state.
The lights and shades, in contrast due,
Relieve each other in the view:
Alike the moral painter's part
T'obey the rules of studious art;
Thus to attract the mental eye
With height'ning variety;--
And as the pencil truly gives
Each form that on the canvas lives,
To make his pen adopt the plan,
In picturing the mind of man.
Oft must he quit the tow'ring aim
Of wisdom, and the boast of fame
To view the sport where folly plays
And courts the flatt'rer's empty praise.
The labourer who tills the soil,
Whose bread is gain'd by daily toil;
The humble home within the dale,
Which no rude storms of Life assail,
Present their subjects to the eye,
As chance unfolds the scenery.
The lofty turrets too must share
His contemplation's watchful care,
Where the old halls with banners gay,
The pride of ancient times display:
He too, in modern domes will trace
Bright Fashion's more luxuriant grace:
While at the costly sumptuous board,
Some Dives rules, the pamper'd Lord:
But even there the eye may see
The heaven-born form of Charity:
E'en in those scenes where lux'ry reigns,
The ear attends when man complains.
In ev'ry corner of our Isle
The kind and healing virtues smile;
And pining penury commands
The melting hearts, the op'ning hands:
There, if a Lazarus asks for bread,
The humble mendicant is fed.",,16387,"INTEREST. A ""mental artist""!?","""The lights and shades, in contrast due, / Relieve each other in the view: / Alike the moral painter's part / T'obey the rules of studious art; / Thus to attract the mental eye / With height'ning variety;-- / And as the pencil truly gives / Each form that on the canvas lives, / To make his pen adopt the plan, / In picturing the mind of man.""","",2011-11-25 01:14:49 UTC,""
6202,"",Reading,2005-09-22 00:00:00 UTC,"[...] But it was Mr. Wordsworth's purpose to consider the influences of fancy and imagination as they are manifested in poetry, and from the different effects to conclude their diversity in kind; while it is my object to investigate the seminal principle, and then from the kind to deduce the degree. My friend has drawn a masterly sketch of the branches with their poetic fruitage. I wish to add the trunk, and even the roots as far as they lift themselves above the ground, and are visible to the naked eye of our common consciousness.
(p. 88)",2011-07-21,16404,"•Chapter 4 is titled Wordsworth's Earlier Poems
•I've included four times: Branches, Trunk, Root, Eye","""My friend has drawn a masterly sketch of the branches with their poetic fruitage. I wish to add the trunk, and even the roots as far as they lift themselves above the ground, and are visible to the naked eye of our common consciousness.""","",2011-07-21 14:11:31 UTC,Chapter 4
6202,"",Reading,2005-09-22 00:00:00 UTC,"In the first place it is to be observed, that Aristotle's positions on this subject are unmixed with fiction. The wise Stagyrite speaks of no successive particles propagating motion like billiard balls (as Hobbs;) nor of nervous or animal spirits, where inanimate and irrational solids are thawed down, and distilled, or filtrated by ascension, into living and intelligent fluids, that etch and re-etch engravings on the brain (as the followers of Des Cartes, and the humoral pathologists in general;) nor of an oscillating ether which was to effect the same service for the nerves of the brain considered as solid fibres, as the animal spirits perform for them under the notion of hollow tubes (as Hartley teaches)--nor finally, (with yet more recent dreamers) of chemical compositions by elective affinity, or of an electric light at once the immediate object and the ultimate organ of inward vision, which rises to the brain like an Aurora Borealis, and there, disporting in various shapes (as the balance of plus and minus, or negative and positive, is destroyed or re-established) images out both past and present. Aristotle delivers a just theory without pretending to an hypothesis; or in other words a comprehensive survey of the different facts, and of their relations to each other without supposition, that is, a fact placed under a number of facts, as their common support and explanation; tho' in the majority of instances these hypotheses or suppositions better deserve the name of upopoiaeseis, or suffictions. He uses indeed the word kinaeseis, to express what we call representations or ideas, but he carefully distinguishes them from material motion, designating the latter always by annexing the words en topo, or kata topon. On the contrary, in his treatise ""De Anima,"" he excludes place and motion from all the operations of thought, whether representations or volitions, as attributes utterly and absurdly heterogeneous.
(p. 100-2)",2011-07-21,16413,"•I cut and pasted this from Project Gutenberg and then cleaned it up. Only later checked against Princeton UP edition (9/13/2011). Note, I transliterated the Greek.
•I've included twice: Billiard Balls and Etching
•INTEREST. STC on other philosophers metaphors of mind. Meta-metaphorical.
•Chapter 5 is titled ""on the Law of Association""","""The wise Stagyrite speaks of no successive particles propagating motion like billiard balls (as Hobbs;) nor of nervous or animal spirits, where inanimate and irrational solids are thawed down, and distilled, or filtrated by ascension, into living and intelligent fluids, that etch and re-etch engravings on the brain (as the followers of Des Cartes, and the humoral pathologists in general;) nor of an oscillating ether which was to effect the same service for the nerves of the brain considered as solid fibres, as the animal spirits perform for them under the notion of hollow tubes (as Hartley teaches)--nor finally, (with yet more recent dreamers) of chemical compositions by elective affinity, or of an electric light at once the immediate object and the ultimate organ of inward vision, which rises to the brain like an Aurora Borealis, and there, disporting in various shapes (as the balance of plus and minus, or negative and positive, is destroyed or re-established) images out both past and present.""","",2011-09-13 15:12:10 UTC,Chapter 5
6207,"",HDIS,2003-09-26 00:00:00 UTC,"""And now,"" thought he,
""How long must I remain in jeopardy
Of blank amazements that amaze no more?
Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core
All other depths are shallow: essences,
Once spiritual, are like muddy lees,
Meant but to fertilize my earthly root,
And make my branches lift a golden fruit
Into the bloom of heaven: other light,
Though it be quick and sharp enough to blight
The Olympian eagle's vision, is dark,
Dark as the parentage of chaos. Hark!
My silent thoughts are echoing from these shells;
Or they are but the ghosts, the dying swells
Of noises far away?--list!"" ",,16442,"•Shortly follows the previous passage
•There's more weirdness below with ""muddy lees"" and ""earthly root."" I should ask Denise if she's studied this passage. REVISIT.","""Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core / All other depths are shallow.""","",2013-08-12 18:55:16 UTC,""
7404,"",Reading,2013-06-06 19:24:38 UTC,"Mr. Coleridge bewilders himself sadly in endeavouring to determine in what the essence of poetry consists;--Milton, we think, has told it in a single line--
--'Thoughts that voluntary movePoetry is the music of language, expressing the music of the mind. Whenever any object takes such a hold on the mind as to make us dwell upon it, and brood over it, melting the heart in love, or kindling it to a sentiment of admiration;--whenever a movement of imagination or passion is impressed on the mind, by which it seeks to prolong and repeat the emotion, to bring all other objects into accord with it, and to give the same movement of harmony, sustained and continuous, to the sounds that express it,--this is poetry. The musical in sound is the sustained and continuous; the musical in thought and feeling is the sustained and continuous also. Whenever articulation passes naturally into intonation, this is the beginning of poetry. There is no natural harmony in the ordinary combinations of significant sounds: the language of prose is not the language of music, or of passion: and it is to supply this inherent defect in the mechanism of language--to make the sound an echo to the sense, when the sense becomes a sort of echo to itself--to mingle the tide of verse, 'the golden cadences of poesy,' with the tide of feeling, flowing, and murmuring as it flows--or to take the imagination off its feet, and spread its wings where it may indulge its own impulses, without being stopped or perplexed by the ordinary abruptnesses, or discordant flats and sharps of prose--that poetry was invented.
Harmonious numbers.'