"But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill / My mind with treasure, led'st me far away / From city din to deep retreats, to banks / And streams Aonian, and, with free consent, / Didst place me happy at Apollo's side."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Hayley
Date
1803
Metaphor
"But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill / My mind with treasure, led'st me far away / From city din to deep retreats, to banks / And streams Aonian, and, with free consent, / Didst place me happy at Apollo's side."
Metaphor in Context
No! howsoe'er the semblance thou assume
Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse,
My Father! for thou never badest me tread
The beaten path, and broad, that leads right on
To opulence, nor didst condemn thy son
To the insipid clamours of the bar,
To laws voluminous, and ill observed;
But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill
My mind with treasure, led'st me far away
From city din to deep retreats, to banks
And streams Aonian, and, with free consent,
Didst place me happy at Apollo's side
.
I speak not now, on more important themes
Intent, of common benefits, and such
As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts,
My Father! who, when I had open'd once
The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learn'd
The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks,
Whose lofty music graced the lips of Jove,
Thyself didst counsel me to add the flowers
That Gallia boasts; those too with which the smooth
Italian his degenerate speech adorns,
That witnesses his mixture with the Goth;
And Palestine's prophetic songs divine.
To sum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains,
The earth beneath it, and the air between,
The rivers and the restless deep, may all
Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish
Concurring with thy will; science herself,
All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head,
And offers me the lip, if, dull of heart,
I shrink not, and decline her gracious boon.
(ll. 83-113, pp. 145-6)
Provenance
HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Cowper, William. The Poems of William Cowper. 3 vols. Ed. John D. Baird and Charles Ryskamp. Oxford: Oxford UP: 1980. Vol III.
Date of Entry
12/30/2003
Date of Review
06/17/2011

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