"On Life's vast ocean diversely we sail, / Reason the card, but Passion is the gale."
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Date
1733-4
Metaphor
"On Life's vast ocean diversely we sail, / Reason the card, but Passion is the gale."
Metaphor in Context
In lazy Apathy let Stoics boast
Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost,
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest:
The rising tempest puts in act the soul,
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.
On Life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but Passion is the gale:
Nor God alone in the still calm we find;
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the Wind .
(Epistle II, ll. 101-110)
Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost,
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest:
The rising tempest puts in act the soul,
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.
On Life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but Passion is the gale:
Nor God alone in the still calm we find;
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the Wind .
(Epistle II, ll. 101-110)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Over 165 entries in ESTC (1733, 1734, 1735, 1736, 1743, 1744, 1745, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1753, 1754, 1755, 1756, 1758, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1763, 1764, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1774, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1780, 1781, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800).
See An Essay on Man, Being the First Book of Ethic epistles. To Henry St. John, L. Bolingbroke. (London: Printed by John Wright, for Lawton Gilliver, 1734). <Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
See also An Essay on Man: In Epistles to a Friend. (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, for George Risk, George Ewing, and William Smith, 1734). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Reading The Poems of Alexander Pope. A One-Volume Edition of the Twickenham Text with Selected Annotations, ed. John Butt. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1963).
See An Essay on Man, Being the First Book of Ethic epistles. To Henry St. John, L. Bolingbroke. (London: Printed by John Wright, for Lawton Gilliver, 1734). <Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
See also An Essay on Man: In Epistles to a Friend. (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, for George Risk, George Ewing, and William Smith, 1734). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Reading The Poems of Alexander Pope. A One-Volume Edition of the Twickenham Text with Selected Annotations, ed. John Butt. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1963).
Date of Entry
11/04/2003
