"Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel, / Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;"
— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Author
Date
w. 1779, published 1800
Metaphor
"Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel, / Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;"
Metaphor in Context
Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd by his alter'd speech, the change divine,
Laugh'd when they should have wept, and swore the day
Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.
"No," said the penitent: "such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou seest, (thine eye the future sees,)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these,
Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;
Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,
Thy presence, thy embrace!"--He spoke an
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd by his alter'd speech, the change divine,
Laugh'd when they should have wept, and swore the day
Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.
"No," said the penitent: "such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou seest, (thine eye the future sees,)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these,
Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;
Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,
Thy presence, thy embrace!"--He spoke an
Categories
Provenance
Searching "heart" and "steel" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Cowper, William. The Poems of William Cowper. 3 vols. Ed. John D. Baird and Charles Ryskamp. Oxford: Oxford UP: 1980. Vol III.
Date of Entry
06/09/2005
