The Dog Days
W H
Genre: | Poetry |
Subjects: | Meteorology, Natural History, Disease, Putrefaction, Politics, Radicalism |
The poem finds analogies between the languor of nature during the Dog Days and contemporary human affairs. During the Dog Days, the heat 'gathers all / Within its vortex, whether sanient breeze / Or renovating moisture; stopping thus / The vegetative veins, and killing life'. But 'potent Eurus [the east wind]' brings thunderstorms 'To rout the verminating blight, the germ / and spring of dearth portended, or disease'. (464) This inspires a rallying cry for England to arise from its torpor and reclaim its freedom. |
© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020
Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]