Note 237 — Chapter VII · PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
Reading edition
A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.:
’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned And heavenly melancholy tuned To bless and bear the rest.
But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the bane, though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (vide “A Song to David,” edited Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped the contagion. But better instances are to be found in the Odes (“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong Labour ... with his pipe in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of thatch,” etc. Vide also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary Supplement,” April 6, 1922, p. 224.