"Since there is no convexity in MIND, / Why are thy genial beams to parts confined?"
— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
T. Cadell
Date
1788
Metaphor
"Since there is no convexity in MIND, / Why are thy genial beams to parts confined?"
Metaphor in Context
If heaven has into being deign'd to call
Thy light, O LIBERTY! to shine on all;
Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray
To earth distribute only partial day?
Since no resisting cause from spirit flows
Thy penetrating essence to opose;
No obstacles by Nature's hand imprest,
Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
Nor motion's laws can speed thy active course,
Nor strong repulsion's pow'rs obstruct thy force;
Since there is no convexity in MIND,
Why are thy genial beams to parts confin'd?
While the chill North with thy bright ray is blest,
Why should fell darkness half the South invest?
Was it decreed, fair Freedom! at thy birth,
That thou shou'd'st ne'er irradiate all the earth?
While Britain basks in thy full blaze of light,
Why lies sad Afric quench'd in total night? (ll. 1-18, p. 101 in Wood)
Thy light, O LIBERTY! to shine on all;
Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray
To earth distribute only partial day?
Since no resisting cause from spirit flows
Thy penetrating essence to opose;
No obstacles by Nature's hand imprest,
Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
Nor motion's laws can speed thy active course,
Nor strong repulsion's pow'rs obstruct thy force;
Since there is no convexity in MIND,
Why are thy genial beams to parts confin'd?
While the chill North with thy bright ray is blest,
Why should fell darkness half the South invest?
Was it decreed, fair Freedom! at thy birth,
That thou shou'd'st ne'er irradiate all the earth?
While Britain basks in thy full blaze of light,
Why lies sad Afric quench'd in total night? (ll. 1-18, p. 101 in Wood)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
3 entries in ESTC (1788). Text from Brycchan Carey's electronic edition <Link>
See also Slavery, a Poem. By Hannah More (London: T. Cadell, 1788). <Link to ECCO>.
Collected in Marcus Wood's The Poetry of Slavery (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003). Excerpted in Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford UP, 1989).
See also Slavery, a Poem. By Hannah More (London: T. Cadell, 1788). <Link to ECCO>.
Collected in Marcus Wood's The Poetry of Slavery (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003). Excerpted in Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford UP, 1989).
Date of Entry
08/13/2012
