The fancy is a "Boundlesse, restlesse faculty, free from all engagements, diggs without spade, sails without Ships, Flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the Center to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotency creating and annihilating things in a moment, and marryng things divorced in nature."

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Tho. Johnson
Date
1657
Metaphor
The fancy is a "Boundlesse, restlesse faculty, free from all engagements, diggs without spade, sails without Ships, Flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the Center to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotency creating and annihilating things in a moment, and marryng things divorced in nature."
Metaphor in Context
Fancy.
The roving, pregnant, busie, teeming sence,
The souls mint. The forge of shapes and dreams,
Commanding Empress of the brain, ubiquitary, faculty.
The immateriall Coyner. That makes a bodilesse Creation.
Bounldesse, restlesse faculty, free from all engagements, digg• without spade, sails without Ships, Flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the Center to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotency creating and annihilating things in a moment, and marryng things divorced in nature.
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 4 entries in ESTC (1657, 1677, 1678).

See Joshua Poole, The English Parnassus, or, a Helpe to English Poesie Containing a Collection of all Rhyming Monosyllables, the Choicest Epithets, and Phrases: With Some General Forms Upon all Occasions, Subjects, and Theams, Alphabeticaly Digested: Together With a Short Institution to English Poesie, by way of a Preface. (London: Printed for Tho. Johnson, 1657). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
02/18/2016

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.