" Blest be that pencil, every art be blest, / That stamps his image deeper on our breast!"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell [etc.]
Date
1788
Metaphor
" Blest be that pencil, every art be blest, / That stamps his image deeper on our breast!"
Metaphor in Context
Thou friend! yet left me of the choicer few,
Whom grief's fond eyes with growing love review;
O thou! whom mutal sorrow will incline
To mix thy sympathetic sighs with mine;
Still be it ours to pay, with just regret,
At Friendship's facred shrine our common debt!
Tho' doom'd (so Heaven ordains) to see no more
The gentle Being, whom we both deplore;
Painting shall still, sweet soothing art! supply
A form so precious in Affection's eye.
Ah! little thought we, in that happier hour,
When our gay Muse rehears'd the Pencil's power;
To mourn that form in cold obstruction laid,
And see him only by the pencil's aid!
Blest be that pencil, every art be blest,
That stamps his image deeper on our breast!
Provenance
Searching "stamp" and "breast" in HDIS (Poetry)
Date of Entry
04/11/2005

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