"Imagination wildly weaves / Her golden labours o'er those glorious leaves, / While Judgment manages the lights and shades / Which Fancy figures, on her bold brocades."
— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Work Title
Date
1814, 1816, 1896
Metaphor
"Imagination wildly weaves / Her golden labours o'er those glorious leaves, / While Judgment manages the lights and shades / Which Fancy figures, on her bold brocades."
Metaphor in Context
What miracles might not those Pow'rs perform
When Genius was awake, and Wit grown warm,
And rapt Imagination wildly weaves
Her golden labours o'er those glorious leaves,
While Judgment manages the lights and shades
Which Fancy figures, on her bold brocades;
And his inimitable Taste bestows
The graceful finish as each flow'ret grows.
How his prompt pen the favorite Friend pourtrays,
With living colours, in his shapely lays;
When Pegasus, impell'd by rapturing strains,
Leaves panting Pope slow-hobbling o'er the plains;
Or his dramatic Muse outstrips the wind,
And drops poor, blushing, Shakspear far behind!
When Genius was awake, and Wit grown warm,
And rapt Imagination wildly weaves
Her golden labours o'er those glorious leaves,
While Judgment manages the lights and shades
Which Fancy figures, on her bold brocades;
And his inimitable Taste bestows
The graceful finish as each flow'ret grows.
How his prompt pen the favorite Friend pourtrays,
With living colours, in his shapely lays;
When Pegasus, impell'd by rapturing strains,
Leaves panting Pope slow-hobbling o'er the plains;
Or his dramatic Muse outstrips the wind,
And drops poor, blushing, Shakspear far behind!
Categories
Provenance
Searching in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Poem first published in its entirety in 1896. The 1814 first edition receives notice in The New Monthly Magazine (March 1815); the poem was written "in the last century" (w. 1795-1820?).
Text from The Life and Poetical Works of James Woodhouse, ed. R. I. Woodhouse, 2 vols. (London: The Leadenhall Press, 1896). <Link to Hathi Trust> <Link to LION>
Text from The Life and Poetical Works of James Woodhouse, ed. R. I. Woodhouse, 2 vols. (London: The Leadenhall Press, 1896). <Link to Hathi Trust> <Link to LION>
Date of Entry
06/01/2005
Date of Review
12/03/2008
