"His soul was fair, / Bright as the children of yon azure sheen!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Andrew Millar
Date
1748
Metaphor
"His soul was fair, / Bright as the children of yon azure sheen!"
Metaphor in Context
  He came, the bard, a little druid wight,
  Of wither'd aspect; but his eye was keen,
  With sweetness mix'd. In russet brown bedight,
  As is his sister of the copses green,
  He crept along, unpromising of mien.
  Gross he who judges so. His soul was fair,
  Bright as the children of yon azure sheen!

  True comeliness, which nothing can impair,
Dwells in the mind: all else is vanity and glare
(Canto II, ll. 289-97, p. 208)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Over 40 entries in ECCO, at least 20 in the ESTC (1748, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1757, 1762, 1763, 1765, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1772, 1773, 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1780, 1784, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1794, 1795).

See The Castle of Indolence. An Allegorical Poem. Written in Imitation of Spenser by James Thomson. (London: A. Millar, 1748). <Link to ECCO>

Reading James Thomson, Liberty, The Castle of Indolence, and other Poems, ed. James Sambrook. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
Date of Entry
11/24/2003

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.