"When up the imperceptible ascent / Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose, / Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns / Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe, / And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst."
— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Work Title
Place of Publication
Cambridge
Date
November 1752, 1791
Metaphor
"When up the imperceptible ascent / Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose, / Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns / Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe, / And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst."
Metaphor in Context
When in my mother's womb conceal'd I lay
A senseless embryo, then my soul thou knewst,
Knewst all her future workings, every thought,
And every faint idea yet unform'd.
When up the imperceptible ascent
Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose,
Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns
Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe,
And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst.
That what of knowledge in my mind was low,
Imperfect, incorrect--in Thee is wondrous,
Uncircumscrib'd, unsearchably profound,
And estimable solely by itself.
(pp. 25-6, ll. 18-30)
A senseless embryo, then my soul thou knewst,
Knewst all her future workings, every thought,
And every faint idea yet unform'd.
When up the imperceptible ascent
Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose,
Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns
Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe,
And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst.
That what of knowledge in my mind was low,
Imperfect, incorrect--in Thee is wondrous,
Uncircumscrib'd, unsearchably profound,
And estimable solely by itself.
(pp. 25-6, ll. 18-30)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
6 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1752, 1756, 1772, 1773, 1787, 1791).
Text from The Poems of the Late Christopher Smart ... Consisting of His Prize Poems, Odes, Sonnets, and Fables, Latin and English Translations: Together With Many Original Compositions, Not Included in the Quarto Edition. To Which Is Prefixed, an Account of His Life and Writings, Never Before Published. 2 vols. (London: Printed and Sold by Smart and Cowslade; and sold by F. Power and Co., 1791).
See On the Omniscience of the Supreme Being. A Poetical Essay. By Christopher Smart, M.A. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall in the University of Cambridge.(Cambridge], M.DCC.LII. [1752). <Link to ECCO>.
Reading in Katrina Williamson and Marcus Walsh, eds., Christopher Smart: Selected Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Note, collected in Musæ Seatonianæ. A Complete Collection of the Cambridge Prize Poems (1772, 1773, 1787).
Text from The Poems of the Late Christopher Smart ... Consisting of His Prize Poems, Odes, Sonnets, and Fables, Latin and English Translations: Together With Many Original Compositions, Not Included in the Quarto Edition. To Which Is Prefixed, an Account of His Life and Writings, Never Before Published. 2 vols. (London: Printed and Sold by Smart and Cowslade; and sold by F. Power and Co., 1791).
See On the Omniscience of the Supreme Being. A Poetical Essay. By Christopher Smart, M.A. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall in the University of Cambridge.(Cambridge], M.DCC.LII. [1752). <Link to ECCO>.
Reading in Katrina Williamson and Marcus Walsh, eds., Christopher Smart: Selected Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Note, collected in Musæ Seatonianæ. A Complete Collection of the Cambridge Prize Poems (1772, 1773, 1787).
Date of Entry
06/21/2011
