"With inflected View, / Thence on th' Ideal Kingdom, swift, she turns / Her Eye; and instant, at her virtual Glance, / Th' obedient Phantoms vanish, and appear, / Compound, divide, and into Order shift, / Each to his rank, from plain Perception up / To Notion quite abstract; where first begins / The World of Spirits, Action all, and Life / Immediate, and unmix'd--but here the Cloud, / So wills Eternal Providence, sits deep."
— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for J. Millan
Date
1727
Metaphor
"With inflected View, / Thence on th' Ideal Kingdom, swift, she turns / Her Eye; and instant, at her virtual Glance, / Th' obedient Phantoms vanish, and appear, / Compound, divide, and into Order shift, / Each to his rank, from plain Perception up / To Notion quite abstract; where first begins / The World of Spirits, Action all, and Life / Immediate, and unmix'd--but here the Cloud, / So wills Eternal Providence, sits deep."
Metaphor in Context
Nor to this evanescent Speck of Earth
Poorly confin'd, those radiant Tracts on high
Are her exalted range; intent, to gaze
Creation thro', and, from that round Complex
Of never-ceasing Wonders, to conceive
Of The Sole Being right, Who spoke the Word,--
And Nature circled. With inflected View,
Thence on th' Ideal Kingdom, swift, she turns
Her Eye; and instant, at her virtual Glance,
Th' obedient Phantoms vanish, and appear,
Compound, divide, and into Order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain Perception up
To Notion quite abstract; where first begins
The World of Spirits, Action all, and Life
Immediate, and unmix'd--but here the Cloud,
So wills Eternal Providence, sits deep.
Enough for Us to know that this dark State,
In wayward Passions lost, and vain Pursuits,
This Infancy of Being! cannot prove
The final issue of the Works of God,
By Love, and Wisdom, inexpressive form'd,
And ever rising with the rising Mind.
(pp. 87-8, cf. p. 86 in Sambrook)
Poorly confin'd, those radiant Tracts on high
Are her exalted range; intent, to gaze
Creation thro', and, from that round Complex
Of never-ceasing Wonders, to conceive
Of The Sole Being right, Who spoke the Word,--
And Nature circled. With inflected View,
Thence on th' Ideal Kingdom, swift, she turns
Her Eye; and instant, at her virtual Glance,
Th' obedient Phantoms vanish, and appear,
Compound, divide, and into Order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain Perception up
To Notion quite abstract; where first begins
The World of Spirits, Action all, and Life
Immediate, and unmix'd--but here the Cloud,
So wills Eternal Providence, sits deep.
Enough for Us to know that this dark State,
In wayward Passions lost, and vain Pursuits,
This Infancy of Being! cannot prove
The final issue of the Works of God,
By Love, and Wisdom, inexpressive form'd,
And ever rising with the rising Mind.
(pp. 87-8, cf. p. 86 in Sambrook)
Categories
Provenance
Reading. Found again in Marjorie Nicholson's Newton Demands the Muse (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1946), 158.
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
