Date: 1730

"Thou golden chain 'twixt God and men, / Bless'd Reason! guide my life and pen."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; / In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar / Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; / Dismounted every great and glorious aim; / Embruted every faculty divine; / Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"Inebriate at fair Fortune's fountain-head, / And reeling through the wilderness of joy; / Where Sense runs savage, broke from Reason's chain, / And sings false peace, till smother'd by the pall."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"O how self-fetter'd was my grovelling soul!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Bound, every heart! and every bosom, burn!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"We wear the chains of Pleasure and of Pride: / These share the man; and these distract him too; / Draw different ways, and clash in their commands."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"By toys entangled, or in guilt bemired, / [Ambition] turns a curse; it is our chain and scourge / In this dark dungeon, where confined we lie, / Close-grated by the sordid bars of sense; / All prospect of eternity shut out; / And, but for execution, ne'er set free."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"What slave, unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn / Expects an empire? He forgets his chain, / And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Though various are the tempers of mankind, / Pleasure's gay family hold all in chains."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Go, fix some weighty truth; / Chain down some passion; do some generous good; / Teach Ignorance to see, or Grief to smile; / Correct thy friend; befriend thy greatest foe; / Or, with warm heart, and confidence Divine, / Spring up, and lay strong hold on Him who made thee."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)