"Hail to each ancient sacred shade / Of those, who gave the Muses aid, / Skill'd verse mysterious to unfold, / And set each brilliant thought in gold."
— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Place of Publication
Reading and London
Publisher
Printed and sold by Smart and Cowslade; and sold by F. Power and Co.
Date
1791
Metaphor
"Hail to each ancient sacred shade / Of those, who gave the Muses aid, / Skill'd verse mysterious to unfold, / And set each brilliant thought in gold."
Metaphor in Context
Hail to each ancient sacred shade
Of those, who gave the Muses aid,
Skill'd verse mysterious to unfold,
And set each brilliant thought in gold.
Hail Aristotle's honour'd shrine,
And great Longinius hail to thine;
Ye too, whose judgment ne'er cou'd fail,
Hail Horace, and Quintilian hail;
And, dread of every Goth and Hun,
Hail Pope, and peerless Addison.
Of those, who gave the Muses aid,
Skill'd verse mysterious to unfold,
And set each brilliant thought in gold.
Hail Aristotle's honour'd shrine,
And great Longinius hail to thine;
Ye too, whose judgment ne'er cou'd fail,
Hail Horace, and Quintilian hail;
And, dread of every Goth and Hun,
Hail Pope, and peerless Addison.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "thought" and "gold" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
2 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1791, 1798).
Text from The Poems of the Late Christopher Smart ... Consisting of His Prize Poems, Odes, Sonnets, and Fables, Latin and English Translations: Together With Many Original Compositions, Not Included in the Quarto Edition. To Which Is Prefixed, an Account of His Life and Writings, Never Before Published. 2 vols. (London: Printed and Sold by Smart and Cowslade; and sold by F. Power and Co., 1791).
Found also in A Selection of Fables (New York: 1798), pp. 60-62.
Reading in Katrina Williamson and Marcus Walsh, eds., Christopher Smart: Selected Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Text from The Poems of the Late Christopher Smart ... Consisting of His Prize Poems, Odes, Sonnets, and Fables, Latin and English Translations: Together With Many Original Compositions, Not Included in the Quarto Edition. To Which Is Prefixed, an Account of His Life and Writings, Never Before Published. 2 vols. (London: Printed and Sold by Smart and Cowslade; and sold by F. Power and Co., 1791).
Found also in A Selection of Fables (New York: 1798), pp. 60-62.
Reading in Katrina Williamson and Marcus Walsh, eds., Christopher Smart: Selected Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Date of Entry
06/01/2005
Date of Review
06/20/2011
