“While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 118.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800Related quotes

"On Cant and Hypocrisy"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)
continuity (12) "It's Supposed To Be Automatic But Actually You Have To Press This Button"
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

“But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”
"Araby"
Dubliners (1914)

Maxim 246, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“Them fancy London types don't know the pleasure of eating chips with fingers”
Unsourced

“While most girls run away from home to marry, I ran away to teach.”

"The Return of Jimi Hendrix"
Dream Harder (1993)
Context: He did a forty-two minute
cosmic rise in future shocks
Star Spangled Banner
in the back of CBGB's He stopped every clock in New York state
and every heart that heard him
and time itself was beaten and confused
and fell lamb-like under the spell of his
fabulous flashing fingers He played an encore at the Bitter End
a heartburst Little Wing
even the waiters cried
and then we fell outside
and in the dusty dawn of Bleeker street
a sweet rain fell
and Jimi died.

“Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.”
Actually the opening lines of Keats's "Fancy" (1820).
Misattributed