Horror may be a "tyrant of the throbbing breast"
— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)
Author
Work Title
Date
w. 1755-1757, 1768
Metaphor
Horror may be a "tyrant of the throbbing breast"
Metaphor in Context
'The verse adorn again
'Fierce war and faithful love,
'And truth severe, by fairy fiction dressed.
'In buskined measures move
'Pale Grief and pleasing Pain,
'With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
'A voice as of the cherub-choir
'Gales from blooming Eden bear;
'And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
'That lost in long futurity expire.
'Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud,
'Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day?
'Tomorrow he repairs the golden flood,
'And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
'Enough for me: with joy I see
'The different doom our fates assign.
'Be thine despair and sceptered care;
'To triumph, and to die, are mine.'
He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.
(ll. 125-44, pp. 198-200)
'Fierce war and faithful love,
'And truth severe, by fairy fiction dressed.
'In buskined measures move
'Pale Grief and pleasing Pain,
'With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
'A voice as of the cherub-choir
'Gales from blooming Eden bear;
'And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
'That lost in long futurity expire.
'Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud,
'Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day?
'Tomorrow he repairs the golden flood,
'And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
'Enough for me: with joy I see
'The different doom our fates assign.
'Be thine despair and sceptered care;
'To triumph, and to die, are mine.'
He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.
(ll. 125-44, pp. 198-200)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
At least 36 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1757, 1768, 1770, 1771, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1786, 1787, 1790, 1793, 1795, 1800).
See Odes by Mr. Gray. ([London]: Printed at Strawberry-Hill, for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, 1757). <Link to ESTC>
Reading Roger Lonsdale's The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, and Oliver Goldsmith (London and New York: Longman and Norton: 1972). [Lonsdale follows the 1768 text]
See Odes by Mr. Gray. ([London]: Printed at Strawberry-Hill, for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, 1757). <Link to ESTC>
Reading Roger Lonsdale's The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, and Oliver Goldsmith (London and New York: Longman and Norton: 1972). [Lonsdale follows the 1768 text]
Date of Entry
11/11/2003
