"My free-born thoughts I'll not confine, / Though all Parnassus could be mine."
— Anonymous
Author
Work Title
Date
1734
Metaphor
"My free-born thoughts I'll not confine, / Though all Parnassus could be mine."
Metaphor in Context
I'm incorrect: the learnèd say
That I write well, but not their way.
For this to every star I bend:
From their dull method heaven defend,
Who labour up the hill of fame,
And pant and struggle for a name!
My free-born thoughts I'll not confine,
Though all Parnassus could be mine.
No let my genius have its way,
My genius I will still obey:
Nor with their stupid rules control
The sacred pulse that beats within my soul.
(ll. 1-12, p. 146)
That I write well, but not their way.
For this to every star I bend:
From their dull method heaven defend,
Who labour up the hill of fame,
And pant and struggle for a name!
My free-born thoughts I'll not confine,
Though all Parnassus could be mine.
No let my genius have its way,
My genius I will still obey:
Nor with their stupid rules control
The sacred pulse that beats within my soul.
(ll. 1-12, p. 146)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Reading Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Date of Entry
09/14/2009
Date of Review
10/22/2003
