"Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd, / Points to new scenes that in succession pass / Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears, / And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye / A wider range o'er all her prospects take."
— Headley, Henry (1765-1788)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for J. Robson
Date
1786
Metaphor
"Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd, / Points to new scenes that in succession pass / Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears, / And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye / A wider range o'er all her prospects take."
Metaphor in Context
Child of the potent spell and nimble eye,
Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd,
Points to new scenes that in succession pass
Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears,
And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye
A wider range o'er all her prospects take:
Lo, at her call, New-Zealand's wastes arise!
Casting their shadows far along the main,
Whose brows cloud-cap'd in joyless majesty,
No human foot hath trod since time began;
Here death-like silence ever-brooding dwells,
Save when the watching sailor startled hears,
Far from his native land at darksome night,
The shrill-ton'd petrel, or the penguin's voice,
That skim their trackless flight on lonely wing,
Through the bleak regions of a nameless main:
Here danger stalks and drinks with glutted ear
The wearied sailor's moan, and fruitless sigh,
Who, as he slowly cuts his daring way,
Affrighted drops his axe, and stops awhile,
To hear the jarring echoes lengthen'd din,
That fling from pathless cliffs their sullen sound:
Oft here the fiend his grisly visage shews,
His limbs of giant form in vesture clad
Of drear collected ice and stiffened snow,
The same he wore a thousand years ago,
That thwarts the sun-beam and endures the day.
(cf. pp. 12-13 in 1785 printing)
Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd,
Points to new scenes that in succession pass
Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears,
And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye
A wider range o'er all her prospects take:
Lo, at her call, New-Zealand's wastes arise!
Casting their shadows far along the main,
Whose brows cloud-cap'd in joyless majesty,
No human foot hath trod since time began;
Here death-like silence ever-brooding dwells,
Save when the watching sailor startled hears,
Far from his native land at darksome night,
The shrill-ton'd petrel, or the penguin's voice,
That skim their trackless flight on lonely wing,
Through the bleak regions of a nameless main:
Here danger stalks and drinks with glutted ear
The wearied sailor's moan, and fruitless sigh,
Who, as he slowly cuts his daring way,
Affrighted drops his axe, and stops awhile,
To hear the jarring echoes lengthen'd din,
That fling from pathless cliffs their sullen sound:
Oft here the fiend his grisly visage shews,
His limbs of giant form in vesture clad
Of drear collected ice and stiffened snow,
The same he wore a thousand years ago,
That thwarts the sun-beam and endures the day.
(cf. pp. 12-13 in 1785 printing)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "mirror" and "soul" in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.
Citation
At least 4 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1785, 1786, 1789).
Text from Poems and other Pieces, By Henry Headley (London: Printed for J. Robson) <Link to ECCO> [Note, some of these poems first appeared in Fugitive Pieces (London: Printed for C. Dilly, 1785).]
See An Invocation of Melancholy. A Fragment. (Oxford: [s.n.], 1785). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
Text from Poems and other Pieces, By Henry Headley (London: Printed for J. Robson) <Link to ECCO> [Note, some of these poems first appeared in Fugitive Pieces (London: Printed for C. Dilly, 1785).]
See An Invocation of Melancholy. A Fragment. (Oxford: [s.n.], 1785). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
11/21/2005
