"'Alas! how soon would doubts again invade / 'The willing mind, and sins again persuade!"
— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)
Author
Work Title
Date
1819
Metaphor
"'Alas! how soon would doubts again invade / 'The willing mind, and sins again persuade!"
Metaphor in Context
"Alas! how soon would doubts again invade
"The willing mind, and sins again persuade!
"I saw it--What?--I was awake, but how?
"Not as I am, or I should see it now:
"It spoke, I think,--I thought, at least it spoke,--
"And look'd alarming--yes, I felt the look.
"But then in sleep those horrid forms arise,
"That the soul sees,--and, we suppose, the eyes,--
"And the soul hears,--the senses then thrown by,
"She is herself the ear, herself the eye;
"A mistress so will free her servile race
"For their own tasks, and take herself the place:
"In sleep what forms will ductile fancy take,
"And what so common as to dream awake?
"On others thus do ghostly guests intrude?
"Or why am I by such advice pursued?
"One out of millions who exist, and why
"They know not--cannot know--and such am I;
"And shall two beings of two worlds, to meet,
"The laws of one, perhaps of both, defeat?
"It cannot be.--But if some being lives
"Who such kind warning to a favourite gives,
"Let him these doubts from my dull spirit clear,
"And once again, expected guest! appear.
"The willing mind, and sins again persuade!
"I saw it--What?--I was awake, but how?
"Not as I am, or I should see it now:
"It spoke, I think,--I thought, at least it spoke,--
"And look'd alarming--yes, I felt the look.
"But then in sleep those horrid forms arise,
"That the soul sees,--and, we suppose, the eyes,--
"And the soul hears,--the senses then thrown by,
"She is herself the ear, herself the eye;
"A mistress so will free her servile race
"For their own tasks, and take herself the place:
"In sleep what forms will ductile fancy take,
"And what so common as to dream awake?
"On others thus do ghostly guests intrude?
"Or why am I by such advice pursued?
"One out of millions who exist, and why
"They know not--cannot know--and such am I;
"And shall two beings of two worlds, to meet,
"The laws of one, perhaps of both, defeat?
"It cannot be.--But if some being lives
"Who such kind warning to a favourite gives,
"Let him these doubts from my dull spirit clear,
"And once again, expected guest! appear.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "mind" and "invad" in HDIS (Poetry)
Date of Entry
05/04/2005
