"But he who servily can wish or grieve / For that which is not in his powr to give / Casts off the firmness wch shoud make him great / the strongest shield we can oppose to fate / letts inclinations grow & thus he weaves / Those very bonds which keep us passions slaves."
— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)
Author
Date
w. before 1717? (first published 1989)
Metaphor
"But he who servily can wish or grieve / For that which is not in his powr to give / Casts off the firmness wch shoud make him great / the strongest shield we can oppose to fate / letts inclinations grow & thus he weaves / Those very bonds which keep us passions slaves."
Metaphor in Context
The Man whose mind & actions still Sedate
Can bravely triumph ore ye thoughts of fate
He who unaltered fortunes Changes brookes
Without elated or dejected lookes
With a fixd carriage & undaunted soul
Shall see ye oceans boiling surges roll
Vesuvius flames in smoaky pillars rise
& bolts of thunder dart from opening skys
Why dread we wretched mankind tell me why
When the vain threats of tyrants idely fly
Weigh all things right as in themselves they are
Unlearn your minds to move by hope & fear
With in yr breast lett resolution reign
& all their baffled forces act in vain
But he who servily can wish or grieve
For that which is not in his powr to give
Casts off the firmness wch shoud make him great
the strongest shield we can oppose to fate
letts inclinations grow & thus he weaves
Those very bonds which keep us passions slaves.
(p. 390, ll. 1-20)
Can bravely triumph ore ye thoughts of fate
He who unaltered fortunes Changes brookes
Without elated or dejected lookes
With a fixd carriage & undaunted soul
Shall see ye oceans boiling surges roll
Vesuvius flames in smoaky pillars rise
& bolts of thunder dart from opening skys
Why dread we wretched mankind tell me why
When the vain threats of tyrants idely fly
Weigh all things right as in themselves they are
Unlearn your minds to move by hope & fear
With in yr breast lett resolution reign
& all their baffled forces act in vain
But he who servily can wish or grieve
For that which is not in his powr to give
Casts off the firmness wch shoud make him great
the strongest shield we can oppose to fate
letts inclinations grow & thus he weaves
Those very bonds which keep us passions slaves.
(p. 390, ll. 1-20)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "bond" and "passion" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Thomas Parnell, "Metr: Boetius 1s 1 Quisquis comp," from Collected Poems of Thomas Parnell, eds. Claude Julien Rawson and F. P. Lock (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989), 390.
Date of Entry
01/09/2012
