"And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend, / In whom the human graces all unite: / Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart; / Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense, / By decency chastised; goodness and wit, / In seldom-meeting harmony combined; / Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal / For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man: / O Dodington! attend my rural song, / Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line, / And teach me to deserve thy just applause."
— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Author
Work Title
Date
1730
Metaphor
"And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend, / In whom the human graces all unite: / Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart; / Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense, / By decency chastised; goodness and wit, / In seldom-meeting harmony combined; / Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal / For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man: / O Dodington! attend my rural song, / Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line, / And teach me to deserve thy just applause."
Metaphor in Context
And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite:
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastised; goodness and wit,
In seldom-meeting harmony combined;
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man:
O Dodington! attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
(p. 38 in Sambrook ed.; pp. 60-1, ll. 21-31 in original)
In whom the human graces all unite:
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastised; goodness and wit,
In seldom-meeting harmony combined;
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man:
O Dodington! attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
(p. 38 in Sambrook ed.; pp. 60-1, ll. 21-31 in original)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 5 entries in ESTC (1730, 1731, 1735, 1740). [Also issued as part of The Four Seasons, and Other Poems.]
Poem first published as Summer. A Poem. By James Thomson. (London: Printed for J. Millan, 1727). Second edition in 1728.
Text revised between 1727 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 as Summer. A Poem. By James Thomson. (London: Printed for J. Millan, 1727). Second edition in 1728.
Text revised between 1727 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
07/07/2013
