"Yet our souls are so crusted with housewifely moss, / That Fancy's bright furnace yields nothing but dross:"
— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by C. Whittingham ... for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme [etc.]
Date
1808
Metaphor
"Yet our souls are so crusted with housewifely moss, / That Fancy's bright furnace yields nothing but dross:"
Metaphor in Context
Dear Beatrice, with pleasure I read your kind letter;
On the subject, methinks, there could scarce be a better:
How vivid the scenes it recall'd to my view,
And how lively it waken'd remembrance anew!
Yet our souls are so crusted with housewifely moss,
That Fancy's bright furnace yields nothing but dross:
Surrounded with balling, and squalling, and prattle,
With handmaids unhandy, and gossipping tattle,
Cut fingers to bandage, and stockings to darn,
And labyrinths endless of ill-manag'd yarn,
Through whose windings Daedalean bewilder'd we wander,
Like draggle-tail'd nymphs of the mazy Meander,
Till at length, like the Hero of Macedon, tir'd
Of the slow perseverance untwisting required,
We brandish our scissars, resolved on the spot,
Since we cannot unravel, to cut through the knot.
On the subject, methinks, there could scarce be a better:
How vivid the scenes it recall'd to my view,
And how lively it waken'd remembrance anew!
Yet our souls are so crusted with housewifely moss,
That Fancy's bright furnace yields nothing but dross:
Surrounded with balling, and squalling, and prattle,
With handmaids unhandy, and gossipping tattle,
Cut fingers to bandage, and stockings to darn,
And labyrinths endless of ill-manag'd yarn,
Through whose windings Daedalean bewilder'd we wander,
Like draggle-tail'd nymphs of the mazy Meander,
Till at length, like the Hero of Macedon, tir'd
Of the slow perseverance untwisting required,
We brandish our scissars, resolved on the spot,
Since we cannot unravel, to cut through the knot.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "fancy" and "dross" in HDIS (Poetry)
Date of Entry
07/19/2005
