"Large is my forehead made, not wond'rous fair, / But room enough for all the Muses there."
— Sansom, Martha [née Fowke] (1690-1736)
Work Title
Date
1720
Metaphor
"Large is my forehead made, not wond'rous fair, / But room enough for all the Muses there."
Metaphor in Context
Here let the Muse perform the painter's art,
And strike the picture fo my face and heart.
Poetry is called the image of the mind,
In mine my soul and body both are joined:
Large is my forehead made, not wond'rous fair,
But room enough for all the Muses there;
Full are my eyes, and of a harmless blue,
As if no wound they made, no dart they knew;
My eyebrows circling o'er a shade bestow,
Veiling the dullness of the eye below;
Nature so niggard in the upper part,
Fell to my lips, and gave a dash of art:
Oft have I heard her faithful lover swear
That Poetry and Love were shining there;
Even my white teeth, but rarely shown,
In life I've little cause for smiling known;
The loss of friends fell on my tender years,
Dashed every hope, and turned my smiles to tears;
A gloomy sweetness on my features hung,
Sorrows my pen, and trembles on my tongue;
Slow is its speech, and with no music fraught,
Wronging the richness of my soul's best thought.
(ll. 1-22, p. 86)
And strike the picture fo my face and heart.
Poetry is called the image of the mind,
In mine my soul and body both are joined:
Large is my forehead made, not wond'rous fair,
But room enough for all the Muses there;
Full are my eyes, and of a harmless blue,
As if no wound they made, no dart they knew;
My eyebrows circling o'er a shade bestow,
Veiling the dullness of the eye below;
Nature so niggard in the upper part,
Fell to my lips, and gave a dash of art:
Oft have I heard her faithful lover swear
That Poetry and Love were shining there;
Even my white teeth, but rarely shown,
In life I've little cause for smiling known;
The loss of friends fell on my tender years,
Dashed every hope, and turned my smiles to tears;
A gloomy sweetness on my features hung,
Sorrows my pen, and trembles on my tongue;
Slow is its speech, and with no music fraught,
Wronging the richness of my soul's best thought.
(ll. 1-22, p. 86)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Lonsdale, R. Ed. Eighteenth Century Women Poets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Date of Entry
10/23/2003
