"But when no Prelate's Lawn with Hair-shirt lin'd, / Is half so incoherent as my Mind, / When (each Opinion with the next at strife, / One ebb and flow of follies all my Life) / I plant, root up, I build, and then confound, / Turn round to square, and square again to round."
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Date
w. 1737, published 1738
Metaphor
"But when no Prelate's Lawn with Hair-shirt lin'd, / Is half so incoherent as my Mind, / When (each Opinion with the next at strife, / One ebb and flow of follies all my Life) / I plant, root up, I build, and then confound, / Turn round to square, and square again to round."
Metaphor in Context
You laugh, half Beau half Sloven if I stand,
My Wig all powder, and all snuff my Band;
You laugh, if Coat and Breeches strangely vary,
White Gloves, and Linnen worthy Lady Mary!
But when no Prelate's Lawn with Hair-shirt lin'd,
Is half so incoherent as my Mind,
When (each Opinion with the next at strife,
One ebb and flow of follies all my Life)
I plant, root up, I build, and then confound,
Turn round to square, and square again to round;
You never change one muscle of your face,
You think this Madness but a common case,
Nor once to Chanc'ry, nor to Hales apply;
Yet hang your lip, to see a Seam awry!
Careless how ill I with myself agree;
Kind to my dress, my figure, not to Me.
Is this my Guide, Philosopher, and Friend?
This, He who loves me, and who ought to mend?
Who ought to make me (what he can, or none,)
That Man divine whom Wisdom calls her own,
Great without Title, without Fortune bless'd,
Rich ev'n when plunder'd, honour'd while oppress'd,
Lov'd without youth, and follow'd without power,
At home tho' exil'd, free, tho' in the Tower.
In short, that reas'ning, high, immortal Thing,
Just less than Jove, and much above a King,
Nay half in Heav'n-- except (what's mighty odd)
A Fit of Vapours clouds this Demi-god.
(pp. 629-30, ll. 161-188)
My Wig all powder, and all snuff my Band;
You laugh, if Coat and Breeches strangely vary,
White Gloves, and Linnen worthy Lady Mary!
But when no Prelate's Lawn with Hair-shirt lin'd,
Is half so incoherent as my Mind,
When (each Opinion with the next at strife,
One ebb and flow of follies all my Life)
I plant, root up, I build, and then confound,
Turn round to square, and square again to round;
You never change one muscle of your face,
You think this Madness but a common case,
Nor once to Chanc'ry, nor to Hales apply;
Yet hang your lip, to see a Seam awry!
Careless how ill I with myself agree;
Kind to my dress, my figure, not to Me.
Is this my Guide, Philosopher, and Friend?
This, He who loves me, and who ought to mend?
Who ought to make me (what he can, or none,)
That Man divine whom Wisdom calls her own,
Great without Title, without Fortune bless'd,
Rich ev'n when plunder'd, honour'd while oppress'd,
Lov'd without youth, and follow'd without power,
At home tho' exil'd, free, tho' in the Tower.
In short, that reas'ning, high, immortal Thing,
Just less than Jove, and much above a King,
Nay half in Heav'n-- except (what's mighty odd)
A Fit of Vapours clouds this Demi-god.
(pp. 629-30, ll. 161-188)
Categories
Provenance
Reading; found again reading Christopher Fox, Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 126.
Citation
See The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), 624-34.
Date of Entry
02/01/2012
