"My simple System shall suppose, / That Alma enters at the Toes; / That then She mounts by just Degrees / Up to the Ancles, Legs, and Knees: / Next, as the Sap of Life does rise, / She lends her Vigor to the Thighs: / And, all these under-Regions past,/ She nestles somewhere near the Waste."
— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Jacob Tonson and John Barber
Date
1718
Metaphor
"My simple System shall suppose, / That Alma enters at the Toes; / That then She mounts by just Degrees / Up to the Ancles, Legs, and Knees: / Next, as the Sap of Life does rise, / She lends her Vigor to the Thighs: / And, all these under-Regions past,/ She nestles somewhere near the Waste."
Metaphor in Context
My simple System shall suppose,
That Alma enters at the Toes;
That then She mounts by just Degrees
Up to the Ancles, Legs, and Knees:
Next, as the Sap of Life does rise,
She lends her Vigor to the Thighs:
And, all these under-Regions past,
She nestles somewhere near the Waste:
Gives Pain or Pleasure, Grief or Laughter;
As We shall show at large hereafter.
Mature, if not improv'd, by Time
Up to the Heart She loves to climb:
From thence, compell'd by Craft and Age,
She makes the Head her latest Stage.
That Alma enters at the Toes;
That then She mounts by just Degrees
Up to the Ancles, Legs, and Knees:
Next, as the Sap of Life does rise,
She lends her Vigor to the Thighs:
And, all these under-Regions past,
She nestles somewhere near the Waste:
Gives Pain or Pleasure, Grief or Laughter;
As We shall show at large hereafter.
Mature, if not improv'd, by Time
Up to the Heart She loves to climb:
From thence, compell'd by Craft and Age,
She makes the Head her latest Stage.
Categories
Provenance
HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Searching in ECCO and ESTC (1718, 1720, 1721, 1725, 1728, 1733, 1734, 1741, 1751, 1754, 1755, 1759, 1768, 1766, 1767, 1769, 1771, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1784, 1790, 1798). See also Prior's Poetical Works (1777, 1779, 1784, 1798). Found in A Collection of English Poets, vol. 10 (1776), The British Poets, vol. 18 (1778), and The Works of the English Poets (1779, 1790). I haven't yet been able to confirm that Alma is in 2 vol. Poems of 1755, 1766, 1767 (texts not available in ECCO).
See Prior's Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos published in Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for J. Tonson and J. Barber, 1718). <Link to ECCO>
Searching text from Poems on Several Occasions, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1905). Reading The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed. H. Bunker Wright and Monroe K. Spears. 2 vols. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1971).
See Prior's Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos published in Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for J. Tonson and J. Barber, 1718). <Link to ECCO>
Searching text from Poems on Several Occasions, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1905). Reading The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed. H. Bunker Wright and Monroe K. Spears. 2 vols. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1971).
Date of Entry
07/22/2013
