"It was the coinage of the aged brain, / When sadness and the sense of loneliness / Oppress the weary heart!"
— Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)
Work Title
Date
1833
Metaphor
"It was the coinage of the aged brain, / When sadness and the sense of loneliness / Oppress the weary heart!"
Metaphor in Context
It was the coinage of the aged brain,
When sadness and the sense of loneliness
Oppress the weary heart! His eyes are closed
A moment, when strange voices, in the air,
Syllable words unknown, as mocking him,
Then all is hushed again: from the dark roof
Fantastic and deriding shapes, half seen,
Point down long fingers, and a laugh is heard
From the dark fissure of the rocky cave,
Till even his shadow, by a moon-glance seen,
Seems joining the fantastic mockery.
Strange forms of beasts and birds, with monstrous beaks
Solemnly nodding, in the dusk appear.
Yonder, by moonlight, all with heads hung down,
There moves a shrouded and a moping train,
But not a form distinctly visible,
Save of a corpse, that silently they bear,
On which the moonlight falls. Now a dark cloud
Is interposed, and the dim troop dissolves.
Forthwith a spectre, towering to the skies,
Moves onward--on, directly to the cave;
And, towering higher as he moves, he lifts--
Half cloud and half anatomy--a dart,
Barbed with fire, and a deep voice is heard,
Through the involving clouds about his head:
I am Apollyon; dost thou sleep, old man?
Tremble--and die!
When sadness and the sense of loneliness
Oppress the weary heart! His eyes are closed
A moment, when strange voices, in the air,
Syllable words unknown, as mocking him,
Then all is hushed again: from the dark roof
Fantastic and deriding shapes, half seen,
Point down long fingers, and a laugh is heard
From the dark fissure of the rocky cave,
Till even his shadow, by a moon-glance seen,
Seems joining the fantastic mockery.
Strange forms of beasts and birds, with monstrous beaks
Solemnly nodding, in the dusk appear.
Yonder, by moonlight, all with heads hung down,
There moves a shrouded and a moping train,
But not a form distinctly visible,
Save of a corpse, that silently they bear,
On which the moonlight falls. Now a dark cloud
Is interposed, and the dim troop dissolves.
Forthwith a spectre, towering to the skies,
Moves onward--on, directly to the cave;
And, towering higher as he moves, he lifts--
Half cloud and half anatomy--a dart,
Barbed with fire, and a deep voice is heard,
Through the involving clouds about his head:
I am Apollyon; dost thou sleep, old man?
Tremble--and die!
Categories
Provenance
Searching "stamp" and "breast" in HDIS (Poetry)
Date of Entry
04/11/2005
Date of Review
04/26/2007
