"Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, / Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep, / A dire descent! beyond the power of frost, / Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge, / Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land unknown, / What water, of the still unfrozen eye, / In the loose marsh or solitary lake, / Where the fresh mountain from the bottom boils."
— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Author
Work Title
Date
1730
Metaphor
"Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, / Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep, / A dire descent! beyond the power of frost, / Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge, / Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land unknown, / What water, of the still unfrozen eye, / In the loose marsh or solitary lake, / Where the fresh mountain from the bottom boils."
Metaphor in Context
As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce,
All winter drives along the darken'd air;
In his own loose revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the white abrupt; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray:
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain effort. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, that fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising thro' the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the tract and bless'd abode of man:
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost,
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land unknown,
What water, of the still unfrozen eye,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh mountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks,
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Thro' the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling rack, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
(ll. 350-395)
All winter drives along the darken'd air;
In his own loose revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the white abrupt; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray:
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain effort. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, that fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising thro' the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the tract and bless'd abode of man:
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost,
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land unknown,
What water, of the still unfrozen eye,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh mountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks,
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Thro' the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling rack, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
(ll. 350-395)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
"Winter" was first published in 1726, and first collected in 1730. See The Seasons, A Hymn, A Poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and Britannia, a Poem. By Mr. Thomson (1730). <Link to ECCO> Reprinted, revised and expanded in 1744, 1746. See also The Seasons. By James Thomson. (1744). <Link to ECCO> And The Seasons. By James Thomson. (1746). <Link to ECCO>
Text transcribed from The Seasons. By Mr. Thomson (London: Printed in the Year 1730). <Link to ECCO>
Text transcribed from The Seasons. By Mr. Thomson (London: Printed in the Year 1730). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
06/20/2013
