"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still receiving, / And t'herself a stranger living."
— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Author
Work Title
Date
1709, 1810
Metaphor
"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still receiving, / And t'herself a stranger living."
Metaphor in Context
Yet the silly wand'ring mind,
Loth to be too much confin'd,
Roves and takes her daily tours,
Coasting round the narrow shores,
Narrow shores of flesh and sense,
Picking shells and pebbles thence:
Or she sits at fancy's door,
Calling shapes and shadows to her,
Foreign visits still receiving,
And t'herself a stranger living.
Never, never would she buy
Indian dust, or Tyrian dye,
Never trade abroad for more,
If she saw her native store,
If her inward worth were known
She might ever live alone.
(p. 470, ll. 59-74)
Loth to be too much confin'd,
Roves and takes her daily tours,
Coasting round the narrow shores,
Narrow shores of flesh and sense,
Picking shells and pebbles thence:
Or she sits at fancy's door,
Calling shapes and shadows to her,
Foreign visits still receiving,
And t'herself a stranger living.
Never, never would she buy
Indian dust, or Tyrian dye,
Never trade abroad for more,
If she saw her native store,
If her inward worth were known
She might ever live alone.
(p. 470, ll. 59-74)
Categories
Provenance
Reading work in progress by Sarah Kareem.
Citation
35 entries in ESTC (1709, 1715, 1731, 1737, 1743, 1748, 1750, 1751, 1753, 1758, 1762, 1764, 1765, 1770, 1772, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1785, 1786, 1788, 1790, 1792, 1793, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1799). Compare two-book and three-book versions.
See Isaac Watts, Horæ Lyricæ. Poems Chiefly of the Lyric Kind. In Three Books, 2nd ed. (London: Printed by J. Humfreys, for N. Cliff, 1709). <Link to ECCO>
Searching The Works of the Reverend and Learned Isaac Watts, D. D., 6 vols. (London: Printed by and for John Barfield, 1810).
See Isaac Watts, Horæ Lyricæ. Poems Chiefly of the Lyric Kind. In Three Books, 2nd ed. (London: Printed by J. Humfreys, for N. Cliff, 1709). <Link to ECCO>
Searching The Works of the Reverend and Learned Isaac Watts, D. D., 6 vols. (London: Printed by and for John Barfield, 1810).
Theme
Stranger Within
Date of Entry
04/12/2014
