"Teach thou my hand, with mutual love, to trace / His mind, as perfect as thy lines his face!"
— Hayley, William (1745-1820)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by A. Strahan ... for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies [etc.]
Date
1800
Metaphor
"Teach thou my hand, with mutual love, to trace / His mind, as perfect as thy lines his face!"
Metaphor in Context
That youth of fairest promise, fair as May,
Pensively tender, and benignly gay,
On thy medallion still retains a form,
In health exulting, and with pleasure warm.
Teach thou my hand, with mutual love, to trace
His mind, as perfect as thy lines his face!
For Nature in that mind was pleas'd to pour
Of intellectual charms no trivial store;
Fancy's high spirit, talent's feeling nerve,
With tender modesty, with mild reserve,
And those prime virtues of ingenuous youth,
Alert benevolence, and dauntless truth;
Zeal, ever eager to make merit known,
And only tardy to announce its own;
Silent ambition, but, though silent, quick,
Yet softly shaded with a veil as thick
As the dark glasses tinted to descry
The sun, so soften'd not to wound the eye;
Temper by nature and by habit clear
From hasty choler, and from sullen fear,
Spleen and dejection could not touch the mind
That drew from solitude a joy refin'd,
To nurse inventive fire, in silence caught,
And brood successful o'er sequester'd thought.
Pensively tender, and benignly gay,
On thy medallion still retains a form,
In health exulting, and with pleasure warm.
Teach thou my hand, with mutual love, to trace
His mind, as perfect as thy lines his face!
For Nature in that mind was pleas'd to pour
Of intellectual charms no trivial store;
Fancy's high spirit, talent's feeling nerve,
With tender modesty, with mild reserve,
And those prime virtues of ingenuous youth,
Alert benevolence, and dauntless truth;
Zeal, ever eager to make merit known,
And only tardy to announce its own;
Silent ambition, but, though silent, quick,
Yet softly shaded with a veil as thick
As the dark glasses tinted to descry
The sun, so soften'd not to wound the eye;
Temper by nature and by habit clear
From hasty choler, and from sullen fear,
Spleen and dejection could not touch the mind
That drew from solitude a joy refin'd,
To nurse inventive fire, in silence caught,
And brood successful o'er sequester'd thought.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "mind" and "line" in HDIS (Poetry)
Theme
Physiognomy
Date of Entry
05/11/2005
