"Thus lawless conquerors our town restore, / With the sad marks of their inhuman power; / No art, nor time, such ravage can repair; / No superstructure can these ruins bear."
— Dixon, Sarah (1671/2-1765)
Author
Work Title
Date
1740
Metaphor
"Thus lawless conquerors our town restore, / With the sad marks of their inhuman power; / No art, nor time, such ravage can repair; / No superstructure can these ruins bear."
Metaphor in Context
The Returned Heart
It must be mine! no other heart could prove
Constant so long, yet so ill-used in love.
How bruised and scarified! how deep the wound!
Senseless, of life no symptom to be found!
Can it be this, that left me young and gay?
Just in the gaudy bloom it fled away:
Unhappy rover! what couldst thou pretend?
Where tyrants reign, can innocence defend?
I'll vow thou art so altered, I scarce know
Thou art the thing, which Strephon sighed for so:
Look how it trembles! and fresh drops declare
It is the same, and he the murderer.
Thus lawless conquerors our town restore,
With the sad marks of their inhuman power;
No art, nor time, such ravage can repair;
No superstructure can these ruins bear.
(p. 177)
It must be mine! no other heart could prove
Constant so long, yet so ill-used in love.
How bruised and scarified! how deep the wound!
Senseless, of life no symptom to be found!
Can it be this, that left me young and gay?
Just in the gaudy bloom it fled away:
Unhappy rover! what couldst thou pretend?
Where tyrants reign, can innocence defend?
I'll vow thou art so altered, I scarce know
Thou art the thing, which Strephon sighed for so:
Look how it trembles! and fresh drops declare
It is the same, and he the murderer.
Thus lawless conquerors our town restore,
With the sad marks of their inhuman power;
No art, nor time, such ravage can repair;
No superstructure can these ruins bear.
(p. 177)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Lonsdale, R. Ed. Eighteenth Century Women Poets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Date of Entry
09/14/2009
Date of Review
05/20/2011
