"Our hearts more free from Faction's Weeds we feel, / But they have lost the Flower of Patriot Zeal."
— Hayley, William (1745-1820)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Date
1780, 1781, 1788
Metaphor
"Our hearts more free from Faction's Weeds we feel, / But they have lost the Flower of Patriot Zeal."
Metaphor in Context
Think not, keen Spirit! that these hands presume
To tear each leaf of laurel from thy tomb!
These hands! which, if a heart of human frame
Could stoop to harbour that ungenerous aim,
Would shield thy Grave, and give, with guardian care,
Each type of Eloquence to flourish there!
But Public Love commands the painful task,
From the pretended Sage to strip the mask,
When his false tongue, averse to Freedom's cause,
Profanes the spirit of her antient laws.
As Asia's soothing opiate Drugs, by stealth,
Shake every slacken'd nerve, and sap the health;
Thy Writings thus, with noxious charms refin'd,
Seeming to soothe its ills, unnerve the Mind.
While the keen cunning of thy hand pretends
To strike alone at Party's abject ends,
Our hearts more free from Faction's Weeds we feel,
But they have lost the Flower of Patriot Zeal.
Wild as thy feeble Metaphysic page,
Thy Hist'ry rambles into Sceptic rage;
Whose giddy and fantastic dreams abuse
A Hampden's Virtue, and a Shakespear's Muse.
(cf. pp. 53-5 in 1780 ed.)
To tear each leaf of laurel from thy tomb!
These hands! which, if a heart of human frame
Could stoop to harbour that ungenerous aim,
Would shield thy Grave, and give, with guardian care,
Each type of Eloquence to flourish there!
But Public Love commands the painful task,
From the pretended Sage to strip the mask,
When his false tongue, averse to Freedom's cause,
Profanes the spirit of her antient laws.
As Asia's soothing opiate Drugs, by stealth,
Shake every slacken'd nerve, and sap the health;
Thy Writings thus, with noxious charms refin'd,
Seeming to soothe its ills, unnerve the Mind.
While the keen cunning of thy hand pretends
To strike alone at Party's abject ends,
Our hearts more free from Faction's Weeds we feel,
But they have lost the Flower of Patriot Zeal.
Wild as thy feeble Metaphysic page,
Thy Hist'ry rambles into Sceptic rage;
Whose giddy and fantastic dreams abuse
A Hampden's Virtue, and a Shakespear's Muse.
(cf. pp. 53-5 in 1780 ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "faction" and "heart" in HDIS (Poetry); metaphor confirmed in ECCO-TCP.
Citation
At least 6 entries in LION, ECCO, and ESTC (1780, 1781, 1782, 1785, 1787, 1788).
See An Essay on History; in Three Epistles to Edward Gibbon, Esq. With Notes. by William Hayley, Esq. (London: Printed for J. Dodsley in Pall-Mali, 1780). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Text from new edition of Poems and Plays, by William Hayley, Esq. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1788). See also William Hayley, Poems and Plays, by William Hayley, Esq., vol. 2 of 6 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1785). <Link to ECCO>
Found also in The Poetical Library; Being a Collection of the Best Modern English Poems (Leipzig: Printed for A.F. Boehme, 1787). <Link to ECCO>
See An Essay on History; in Three Epistles to Edward Gibbon, Esq. With Notes. by William Hayley, Esq. (London: Printed for J. Dodsley in Pall-Mali, 1780). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Text from new edition of Poems and Plays, by William Hayley, Esq. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1788). See also William Hayley, Poems and Plays, by William Hayley, Esq., vol. 2 of 6 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1785). <Link to ECCO>
Found also in The Poetical Library; Being a Collection of the Best Modern English Poems (Leipzig: Printed for A.F. Boehme, 1787). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
08/24/2004
