"Think'st thou, Lorenzo , to find pastimes here? / No guilty passion blown into a flame, / No foible flatter'd, dignity disgraced, / No fairy field of fiction, all on flower, / No rainbow colours here, or silken tale."
— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
R. Dodsley
Date
1743
Metaphor
"Think'st thou, Lorenzo , to find pastimes here? / No guilty passion blown into a flame, / No foible flatter'd, dignity disgraced, / No fairy field of fiction, all on flower, / No rainbow colours here, or silken tale."
Metaphor in Context
Think'st thou, Lorenzo , to find pastimes here?
No guilty passion blown into a flame,
No foible flatter'd, dignity disgraced,
No fairy field of fiction, all on flower,
No rainbow colours here, or silken tale;
But solemn counsels, images of awe,
Truths which Eternity lets fall on man
With double weight, through these revolving spheres,
This death-deep silence, and incumbent shade:
Thoughts such as shall revisit your last hour;
Visit uncall'd, and live when life expires;
And thy dark pencil, Midnight, darker still
In melancholy dipp'd, embrowns the whole.
(ll. 67-79, pp. 118-9 in CUP edition)
No guilty passion blown into a flame,
No foible flatter'd, dignity disgraced,
No fairy field of fiction, all on flower,
No rainbow colours here, or silken tale;
But solemn counsels, images of awe,
Truths which Eternity lets fall on man
With double weight, through these revolving spheres,
This death-deep silence, and incumbent shade:
Thoughts such as shall revisit your last hour;
Visit uncall'd, and live when life expires;
And thy dark pencil, Midnight, darker still
In melancholy dipp'd, embrowns the whole.
(ll. 67-79, pp. 118-9 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 The Complaint. Or, Night-Thoughts on Life Death, & Immortality. Night the Fifth. (London: R. Dodsley, 1743). <Link to ECCO>
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 The Complaint. Or, Night-Thoughts on Life Death, & Immortality. Night the Fifth. (London: R. Dodsley, 1743). <Link to ECCO>
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
06/10/2013
