"HAIL, Mighty Being! Universal Soul / Of Heaven and Earth! Essential Presence, hail! / To Thee I bend the Knee, to Thee my Thoughts / Continual climb, who, with a Master-Hand, / Hast the great Whole into Perfection touch'd."
— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed and sold by A. Millar and G. Strahan
Date
1728
Metaphor
"HAIL, Mighty Being! Universal Soul / Of Heaven and Earth! Essential Presence, hail! / To Thee I bend the Knee, to Thee my Thoughts / Continual climb, who, with a Master-Hand, / Hast the great Whole into Perfection touch'd."
Metaphor in Context
HAIL, Mighty Being! Universal Soul
Of Heaven and Earth! Essential Presence, hail!
To Thee I bend the Knee, to Thee my Thoughts
Continual climb, who, with a Master-Hand,
Hast the great Whole into Perfection touch'd.
By Thee the various vegetative Tribes,
Wrapt in a filmy Net, and clad with Leaves,
Draw the live Aether, and imbibe the Dew.
By Thee dispos'd into cogenial Soils
Stands each attractive Plant, and sucks, and swells
The juicy Tide, a twining Mass of Tubes.
At Thy Command, the vernal Sun awakes
The torpid Sap, detruded to the Root
By Wintry Winds, that now, in fluent Dance
And lively Fermentation, mounting, spreads
All this innumerous-colour'd Scene of things.
(p. 28)
Of Heaven and Earth! Essential Presence, hail!
To Thee I bend the Knee, to Thee my Thoughts
Continual climb, who, with a Master-Hand,
Hast the great Whole into Perfection touch'd.
By Thee the various vegetative Tribes,
Wrapt in a filmy Net, and clad with Leaves,
Draw the live Aether, and imbibe the Dew.
By Thee dispos'd into cogenial Soils
Stands each attractive Plant, and sucks, and swells
The juicy Tide, a twining Mass of Tubes.
At Thy Command, the vernal Sun awakes
The torpid Sap, detruded to the Root
By Wintry Winds, that now, in fluent Dance
And lively Fermentation, mounting, spreads
All this innumerous-colour'd Scene of things.
(p. 28)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Text sourced from Oxford Text Archive at http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/4109.
Poem first published Spring. A Poem. By Mr. Thomson (London: Printed and sold by A. Millar, at Buchanan's Head over-against St. Clement's Church in the Strand; and G. Strahan, at the Golden Ball in Cornhill, 1728). <Link to ECCO>
Text revised and expanded between 1728 and 1746. Searching text from The Poetical Works (1830), checked against earlier editions. Also reading James Sambrook's edition of The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), which reproduces the 1746 edition of Thomson's poem.
Collected in The Seasons, A Hymn, A Poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and Britannia, a Poem. By Mr. Thomson (1730). <Link to ECCO>
Poem first published Spring. A Poem. By Mr. Thomson (London: Printed and sold by A. Millar, at Buchanan's Head over-against St. Clement's Church in the Strand; and G. Strahan, at the Golden Ball in Cornhill, 1728). <Link to ECCO>
Text revised and expanded between 1728 and 1746. Searching text from The Poetical Works (1830), checked against earlier editions. Also reading James Sambrook's edition of The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), which reproduces the 1746 edition of Thomson's poem.
Collected in The Seasons, A Hymn, A Poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and Britannia, a Poem. By Mr. Thomson (1730). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
06/20/2013
