"A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."
— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Place of Publication
Printed for R. Dodsley
Publisher
London
Date
1742
Metaphor
"A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."
Metaphor in Context
Yet man (fool man!) here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh;
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by Heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there
Where seraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow
In His full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire!
And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
(ll. 135-154, pp. 40-1 in CUP edition)
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh;
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by Heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there
Where seraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow
In His full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire!
And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
(ll. 135-154, pp. 40-1 in CUP edition)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Uniform title published in 9 volumes, from 1742 to 1745. At least 133 reprintings after 1745 in ESTC (1747, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1755, 1756, 1757, 1758, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1764, 1765, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1782, 1783, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1800).
See Edward Young, The Complaint: Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1742). <Link to 2nd edition in Google Books>
Text from The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose, of the Rev. Edward Young, LL.D., 2 vols. (London: William Tegg, 1854). <Link to Google Books> Reading Edward Young, Night Thoughts, ed. Stephen Cornford (New York: Cambridge UP, 1989).
See Edward Young, The Complaint: Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1742). <Link to 2nd edition in Google Books>
Text from The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose, of the Rev. Edward Young, LL.D., 2 vols. (London: William Tegg, 1854). <Link to Google Books> Reading Edward Young, Night Thoughts, ed. Stephen Cornford (New York: Cambridge UP, 1989).
Date of Entry
06/05/2013
