"Passes the day illusive, and perplext, / As fleets the Vision o'er the formful Brain, / This Moment hurrying wild the impassion'd Soul, / The next in Nothing lost."
— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for J. Millan
Date
1727
Metaphor
"Passes the day illusive, and perplext, / As fleets the Vision o'er the formful Brain, / This Moment hurrying wild the impassion'd Soul, / The next in Nothing lost."
Metaphor in Context
Passes the day illusive, and perplext,
As fleets the Vision o'er the formful Brain,
This Moment hurrying wild the impassion'd Soul,
The next in Nothing lost. 'tis so to Him,
The Dreamer of this Earth, a chearless blank!
A Sight of Horror to th'ungodly Wretch,
The Hard, the Lewd, the Cruel, and the False,
Who, all day long, have made the Widow weep,
And snatch'd the Morsel from her Orphan's Mouth,
To give their Dogs: but to th'harmonious Mind,
Who makes the hopeless Heart to sing for Joy,
Diffusing kind Beneficence around
Boastless, as now descends the silent Dew;
To Him the long Review of order'd Life
Is inward Rapture, only to be felt!
(pp. 75-6 in original, p. 82 in Sambrook)
As fleets the Vision o'er the formful Brain,
This Moment hurrying wild the impassion'd Soul,
The next in Nothing lost. 'tis so to Him,
The Dreamer of this Earth, a chearless blank!
A Sight of Horror to th'ungodly Wretch,
The Hard, the Lewd, the Cruel, and the False,
Who, all day long, have made the Widow weep,
And snatch'd the Morsel from her Orphan's Mouth,
To give their Dogs: but to th'harmonious Mind,
Who makes the hopeless Heart to sing for Joy,
Diffusing kind Beneficence around
Boastless, as now descends the silent Dew;
To Him the long Review of order'd Life
Is inward Rapture, only to be felt!
(pp. 75-6 in original, p. 82 in Sambrook)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 7 entries in ESTC (1727, 1728, 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
