"Our Depths who fathoms, or our Shallows finds? / Quick Whirls, and shifting Eddies, of our minds?"
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Date
1734
Metaphor
"Our Depths who fathoms, or our Shallows finds? / Quick Whirls, and shifting Eddies, of our minds?"
Metaphor in Context
Our Depths who fathoms, or our Shallows finds?
Quick Whirls, and shifting Eddies, of our minds?
Life's stream for observation will not stay,
It hurries all too fast to mark their way :
In vain sedate reflections we would make,
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
On human actions reason tho' you can,
It may be Reason, but it is not Man;
His Principle of action once explore,
That instant, 'tis his principle no more;
Like following life thro' Creatures you dissect,
You lose it, in the moment you detect.
(ll. 29-40)
Quick Whirls, and shifting Eddies, of our minds?
Life's stream for observation will not stay,
It hurries all too fast to mark their way :
In vain sedate reflections we would make,
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
On human actions reason tho' you can,
It may be Reason, but it is not Man;
His Principle of action once explore,
That instant, 'tis his principle no more;
Like following life thro' Creatures you dissect,
You lose it, in the moment you detect.
(ll. 29-40)
Provenance
Reading and searching in HDIS (Poetry). See also Patricia Meyer Spacks, An Argument of Images: The Poetry of Alexander Pope (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1971), 3.
Citation
At least 40 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1733, 1734, 1735, 1736, 1737, 1739, 1744, 1747, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1753, 1754, 1757, 1758, 1760, 1762, 1764, 1769, 1770, 1776, 1777, 1780, 1785, 1789, 1790, 1793, 1797, 1800).
See An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Lord Visct. Cobham. By Mr. Pope. (London: Printed for Lawton Gilliver, at Homer’s Head against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleetstreet, 1733 [1734]). <Link to ESTC>
Text from The Works of Alexander Pope (London: Printed for B. Lintot, Lawton Gilliver, H. Lintot, L. Gilliver, and J. Clarke, 1736). <Link to LION> [Epistle I. To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Viscount Cobham.]
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 Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Lord Visct. Cobham. By Mr. Pope. (London: Printed for Lawton Gilliver, at Homer’s Head against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleetstreet, 1733 [1734]). <Link to ESTC>
Text from The Works of Alexander Pope (London: Printed for B. Lintot, Lawton Gilliver, H. Lintot, L. Gilliver, and J. Clarke, 1736). <Link to LION> [Epistle I. To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Viscount Cobham.]
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).
Theme
Stream of Consciousness
Date of Entry
11/04/2003
