"Check they the torpid influence of Despair, / Or bid warm Health re-animate the breast; / Where Hope's soft visions have no longer part, / And whose sad inmate--is a broken heart?"
— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell, Junior, and W. Davies
Date
1797
Metaphor
"Check they the torpid influence of Despair, / Or bid warm Health re-animate the breast; / Where Hope's soft visions have no longer part, / And whose sad inmate--is a broken heart?"
Metaphor in Context
Sonnet LXIV.
Written at Bristol in the Summer of 1794
Here from the restless bed of lingering pain
The languid sufferer seeks the tepid wave,
And feels returning health and hope again
Disperse "the gathering shadows of the grave!"
And here romantic rocks that boldly swell,
Fringed with green woods, or stain'd with veins of ore,
Call'd native Genius forth, whose Heav'n-taught skill
Charm'd the deep echos of the rifted shore.
But tepid waves, wild scenes, or summer air,
Restore they palsied Fancy, woe-deprest?
Check they the torpid influence of Despair,
Or bid warm Health re-animate the breast;
Where Hope's soft visions have no longer part,
And whose sad inmate--is a broken heart?
Written at Bristol in the Summer of 1794
Here from the restless bed of lingering pain
The languid sufferer seeks the tepid wave,
And feels returning health and hope again
Disperse "the gathering shadows of the grave!"
And here romantic rocks that boldly swell,
Fringed with green woods, or stain'd with veins of ore,
Call'd native Genius forth, whose Heav'n-taught skill
Charm'd the deep echos of the rifted shore.
But tepid waves, wild scenes, or summer air,
Restore they palsied Fancy, woe-deprest?
Check they the torpid influence of Despair,
Or bid warm Health re-animate the breast;
Where Hope's soft visions have no longer part,
And whose sad inmate--is a broken heart?
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Reading and comparing The Poems of Charlotte Smith, ed. Stuart Curran (New York and Oxford: OUP, 1993).
Elegiac Sonnets, And Other Poems, By Charlotte Smith, 8th edition, 2 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, Junior, and W. Davies, 1797). <Link to ECCO><Link to volume I in Google Books><volume II>
See also Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, by Charlotte Smith, 9th edition, 2 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, 1800). <Link to volume I in Google Books> <Link to volume II in ECCO> — Note, Curran uses this edition as his base text for Sonnets 1 through 59.
Elegiac Sonnets, And Other Poems, By Charlotte Smith, 8th edition, 2 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, Junior, and W. Davies, 1797). <Link to ECCO><Link to volume I in Google Books><volume II>
See also Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, by Charlotte Smith, 9th edition, 2 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, 1800). <Link to volume I in Google Books> <Link to volume II in ECCO> — Note, Curran uses this edition as his base text for Sonnets 1 through 59.
Date of Entry
06/13/2013
