The Parallel

Prometheus, forming Mr. Day,
Carved something like a man in clay:
The mortal's work might well miscarry;
He that does heaven and earth control
Has only power to form a soul;
His hand is evident in Harry,
Since one is but a moving clod,
Th' other the lively form of God.
'Squire Wallis, you will scarce be able
To prove all poetry but fable.

Matthew Prior

Matthew Prior was an English poet and diplomat. He is known for his extensive contributions to poetry during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Prior's works often blend sharp wit, classical allusions, and a mastery of form. Apart from poetry, he was actively involved in politics and served as a diplomat for the English government. His poetry reflects his broad knowledge and varied experiences.

Matthew Prior

Songs Set To Music: 6. Set By Mr. Smith

Matthew Prior, Simple Poetry

To Cloe

Matthew Prior, Simple Poetry

To Fortune

Matthew Prior, Simple Poetry

On My Birthday, July 21

Matthew Prior, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

To The Honourable Charles Montague, Esq.

Howe'er, 'tis well that, while mankind
Through fate's perverse meander errs,
He can imagined pleasures find
To combat against real cares.

Fancies and notions he pursues,
Which ne'er had being but in thought;
Each, like the Grecian artist, wooes,
The image he himself has wrought.

Against experience he believes;
He argues against demonstration:
Pleased when his reason he deceives,
And sets his judgement by his passion.

The hoary fool, who many days
Has struggled with continued sorrow,
Renew's his hope, and blindly lays
The desperate bet upon to-morrow.

To-morrow comes: 'tis noon, 'tis night:
This day like all the former flies;
Yet on he runs to seek delight
To-morrow, till to-night he dies.

Our hopes like towerin...

Matthew Prior

Prometheus Or The Poet's Forethought

Of Prometheus, how undaunted
    On Olympus' shining bastions
His audacious foot he planted,
Myths are told and songs are chanted,
    Full of promptings and suggestions.

Beautiful is the tradition
    Of that flight through heavenly portals,
The old classic superstition
Of the theft and the transmission
    Of the fire of the Immortals!

First the deed of noble daring,
    Born of heavenward aspiration,
Then the fire with mortals sharing,
Then the vulture,--the despairing
    Cry of pain on crags Caucasian.

All is but a symbol painted
    Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;
Only those are crowned and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted,
    Making nations nobler, freer.

In their feverish exultations,
    In thei...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

An Ode : On Exodus III. 14

On Exodus III. 14. "I am that I am."

Man! foolish man!
Scarce know'st thou how thyself began,
Scarce hadst thou thought enough to prove thou art,
Yet, steel'd with studied boldness, thou darest try
To send thy doubting Reason's dazzled eye
Through the mysterious gulf of vast immensity;
Much thou canst there discern, much thence impart.
Vain wretch! suppress thy knowing pride,
Mortify thy learned lust:
Vain are thy thoughts while thou thyself art dust.

Let wit her sails, her oars let wisdom lend,
The helm let politic experience guide;
Yet cease to hope thy short-lived bark shall ride
Down spreading Fate's unnavigable tide.
What though still it farther tend?
Still 'tis farther from its end,
And, in the bosom of that boundless sea,
Still fin...

Matthew Prior

Mechanophilus

Now first we stand and understand,
And sunder false from true,
And handle boldly with the hand,
And see and shape and do.

Dash back that ocean with a pier,
Strow yonder mountain flat,
A railway there, a tunnel here,
Mix me this Zone with that!

Bring me my horsemy horse? my wings
That I may soar the sky,
For Thought into the outward springs,
I find her with the eye.

O will she, moonlike, sway the main,
And bring or chase the storm,
Who was a shadow in the brain,
And is a living form?

Far as the Future vaults her skies,
From this my vantage ground
To those still-working energies
I spy nor term nor bound.

As we surpass our fathers skill,
Our sons will shame our own;
A thousand things are hidden still

Alfred Lord Tennyson

On the Platonic 'Ideal' as it was Understood by Aristotle.

Ye sister Pow'rs who o'er the sacred groves
Preside, and, Thou, fair mother of them all
Mnemosyne,¹ and thou, who in thy grot
Immense reclined at leisure, hast in charge
The Archives and the ord'nances of Jove,
And dost record the festivals of heav'n,
Eternity! Inform us who is He,
That great Original by Nature chos'n
To be the Archetype of Human-kind,
Unchangeable, Immortal, with the poles
Themselves coaeval, One, yet ev'rywhere,
An image of the god, who gave him Being?
Twin-brother of the Goddess born from Jove,²
He dwells not in his Father's mind, but, though
Of common nature with ourselves, exists
Apart, and occupies a local home.
Whether, companion of the stars, he spend
Eternal ages, roaming at his will
From sphere to sphe...

John Milton

The Divine Comedy by Dante: The Vision Of Paradise: Canto XXIX

No longer than what time Latona's twins
Cover'd of Libra and the fleecy star,
Together both, girding the' horizon hang,
In even balance from the zenith pois'd,
Till from that verge, each, changing hemisphere,
Part the nice level; e'en so brief a space
Did Beatrice's silence hold. A smile
Bat painted on her cheek; and her fix'd gaze
Bent on the point, at which my vision fail'd:
When thus her words resuming she began:
"I speak, nor what thou wouldst inquire demand;
For I have mark'd it, where all time and place
Are present. Not for increase to himself
Of good, which may not be increas'd, but forth
To manifest his glory by its beams,
Inhabiting his own eternity,
Beyond time's limit or what bound soe'er
To circumscribe his being, as he will'd,
Into new n...

Dante Alighieri