"At Shakespear's happy birth / With fire ethereal Jove his soul endow'd, / Then bade him spurn the narrow bounds of earth, / And sordid wishes of the grov'ling crowd, / That chain the free-born mind."
— Laurence, French (1757-1809)
Author
Place of Publication
Dublin
Date
1872
Metaphor
"At Shakespear's happy birth / With fire ethereal Jove his soul endow'd, / Then bade him spurn the narrow bounds of earth, / And sordid wishes of the grov'ling crowd, / That chain the free-born mind."
Metaphor in Context
At Shakespear's happy birth
With fire ethereal Jove his soul endow'd,
Then bade him spurn the narrow bounds of earth,
And sordid wishes of the grov'ling crowd,
That chain the free-born mind; and "Take," he said,
"This sacred charge, O Fancy: to his sight,
"Glancing in all their colours, be displayed
"The airy forms that sport in thy pure fields of light;
"For his vast mind, with innate wisdom fraught
"Beyond what taught
"The bards of yore,
"Thy trackless regions boldly shall explore,
"I guiding;--thus, O goddess, have I sworn:
"And now is come the fated hour;
"Earth now shall see and own thy power
"Forth-beaming in thy son. Be Shakespear born!"
(p. 32)
With fire ethereal Jove his soul endow'd,
Then bade him spurn the narrow bounds of earth,
And sordid wishes of the grov'ling crowd,
That chain the free-born mind; and "Take," he said,
"This sacred charge, O Fancy: to his sight,
"Glancing in all their colours, be displayed
"The airy forms that sport in thy pure fields of light;
"For his vast mind, with innate wisdom fraught
"Beyond what taught
"The bards of yore,
"Thy trackless regions boldly shall explore,
"I guiding;--thus, O goddess, have I sworn:
"And now is come the fated hour;
"Earth now shall see and own thy power
"Forth-beaming in thy son. Be Shakespear born!"
(p. 32)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in HDIS (Poetry); found again "mind" and "chain"
Citation
Poetical remains of French Laurence, D.C.L., M.P. and Richard Laurence, D.C.L., Archbishop of Cashel: with a brief memoir of each author (Dublin: 1872). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
03/07/2006
Date of Review
05/26/2011
