"What slave, unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn / Expects an empire? He forgets his chain, / And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves."
— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
R. Dodsley
Date
1744
Metaphor
"What slave, unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn / Expects an empire? He forgets his chain, / And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves."
Metaphor in Context
Enthusiastic this? then all are weak,
But rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height
Some souls have soar'd, or martyrs ne'er had bled:
And all may do what has by man been done.
Who, beaten by these sublunary storms,
Boundless, interminable joys can weigh,
Unraptured, unexalted, uninflamed?
What slave, unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn
Expects an empire? He forgets his chain,
And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves.
(ll. 603-612, p. 164 in CUP edition)
But rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height
Some souls have soar'd, or martyrs ne'er had bled:
And all may do what has by man been done.
Who, beaten by these sublunary storms,
Boundless, interminable joys can weigh,
Unraptured, unexalted, uninflamed?
What slave, unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn
Expects an empire? He forgets his chain,
And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves.
(ll. 603-612, p. 164 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).
Edward Young, Night the Sixth. The Infidel Reclaim'd. In Two Parts. Containing, The Nature, Proof, and Importance of Immortality. Part the First. Where, among other things, Glory, and Riches, are particularly consider'd. Humbly Inscrib'd to the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. (London: R. Dodsley, 1744). <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).
Edward Young, Night the Sixth. The Infidel Reclaim'd. In Two Parts. Containing, The Nature, Proof, and Importance of Immortality. Part the First. Where, among other things, Glory, and Riches, are particularly consider'd. Humbly Inscrib'd to the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. (London: R. Dodsley, 1744). <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
06/11/2013
