Careful Words

vision (n.)

vision (v.)

  It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy. . . . Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,—in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797): Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331.

The vision and the faculty divine;

Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Excursion. Book i.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell

From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd

In vision beatific.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 679.

So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,

That when a soul is found sincerely so,

A thousand liveried angels lackey her,

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,

And in clear dream and solemn vision

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,

Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants

Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 453.

An unreflected light did never yet

Dazzle the vision feminine.

Sir Henry Taylor (1800-18—): Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.

I took it for a faery vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,

That in the colours of the rainbow live,

And play i' th' plighted clouds.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 298.

An unreflected light did never yet

Dazzle the vision feminine.

Sir Henry Taylor (1800-18—): Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.

Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,

And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire.

Omar Khayyam (1048-1131): Rubáiyát. Stanza lxvii.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.

  Where there is no vision, the people perish.

Old Testament: Proverbs xxix. 18.

  Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

Old Testament: Habakkuk ii. 2.

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,

The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!

John Dryden (1631-1701): Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 238.