"[T]o conceal, / With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,-- / Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,-- / Which is the tyrant Spirit of our thought, / Is a stern task of soul."
— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Date
1816
Metaphor
"[T]o conceal, / With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,-- / Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,-- / Which is the tyrant Spirit of our thought, / Is a stern task of soul."
Metaphor in Context
Thus far have I proceeded in a theme
Renewed with no kind auspices:--to feel
We are not what we have been, and to deem
We are not what we should be,--and to steel
The heart against itself; and to conceal,
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,--
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,--
Which is the tyrant Spirit of our thought,
Is a stern task of soul:--No matter,--it is taught.
(p. 872, ll. 1031-39
Renewed with no kind auspices:--to feel
We are not what we have been, and to deem
We are not what we should be,--and to steel
The heart against itself; and to conceal,
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,--
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,--
Which is the tyrant Spirit of our thought,
Is a stern task of soul:--No matter,--it is taught.
(p. 872, ll. 1031-39
Categories
Provenance
Reading in Perkins. Text from HDIS
Citation
Perkins, David, ed. English Romantic Writers. 2nd ed. Harcourt Brace Publishers, 1995.
Date of Entry
05/27/2008
Date of Review
05/27/2008
