"And then in quiet circles did they press / The hillock turf, and caught the latter end / Of some strange history, potent to send / A young mind from its bodily tenement."
— Keats, John (1795-1821)
Author
Work Title
Date
1818
Metaphor
"And then in quiet circles did they press / The hillock turf, and caught the latter end / Of some strange history, potent to send / A young mind from its bodily tenement."
Metaphor in Context
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young childrens' children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its bodily tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young childrens' children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its bodily tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Keats, John. Complete Poems. Ed. Jack Stillinger. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Date of Entry
09/17/2003
