"Yet we have Reason, to supply / What nature did to man deny: / Weak viceroy! Who thy power will own, / When Custom has usurped thy throne?"
— Barber, Mary (c.1685-1755)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed [by Samuel Richardson] for C. Rivington
Date
[1731?] 1734
Metaphor
"Yet we have Reason, to supply / What nature did to man deny: / Weak viceroy! Who thy power will own, / When Custom has usurped thy throne?"
Metaphor in Context
O were our dress contrived like these,
For use, for ornament and ease!
Man only seems to sorrow born,
Naked, defenceless and forlorn.
Yet we have Reason, to supply
What nature did to man deny:
Weak viceroy! Who thy power will own,
When Custom has usurped thy throne?
In vain did I appeal to thee,
Ere I would wear this livery;
Who, in defiance to thy rules,
Delights to make us act like fools.
O'er the human race the tyrant reigns,
And binds them in eternal chains.
We yield to his despotic sway,
The only monarch all obey.
(ll. 41-56, p. 121; cf. pp. 15-16 in 1734 ed.)
For use, for ornament and ease!
Man only seems to sorrow born,
Naked, defenceless and forlorn.
Yet we have Reason, to supply
What nature did to man deny:
Weak viceroy! Who thy power will own,
When Custom has usurped thy throne?
In vain did I appeal to thee,
Ere I would wear this livery;
Who, in defiance to thy rules,
Delights to make us act like fools.
O'er the human race the tyrant reigns,
And binds them in eternal chains.
We yield to his despotic sway,
The only monarch all obey.
(ll. 41-56, p. 121; cf. pp. 15-16 in 1734 ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Lonsdale's anthology of women poets; confirmed in ECCO.
Citation
At least 3 entries in ESTC (1734, 1735, 1736).
See Mary Barber, Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed [by Samuel Richardson] for C. Rivington, at the Bible and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1734). <Link to ESTC>
Text from Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
See Mary Barber, Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed [by Samuel Richardson] for C. Rivington, at the Bible and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1734). <Link to ESTC>
Text from Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Date of Entry
09/14/2009
Date of Review
10/22/2003
