The mind may be searched and moral seeds ("whence we heroic actions reap") may be roused from sleep

  At other times he pried through nature's store,
  Whate'er she in the ethereal round contains,
  Whate'er she hides beneath her verdant floor,
  The vegetable and the mineral reigns;
  Or else he scann'd the globe, those small domains,
  Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep,
  Its seas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains;
  But more he search'd the mind, and roused from sleep
Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap.
(Canto II, ll. 91-99, p. 202)

Thomson, James (1700-1748). Liberty, The Castle of Indolence, and other Poems. Ed. James Sambrook. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.

HDIS

2003-11-24