Date: 1743
"The noblest spirit, fighting her hard fate / In this damp, dusky region, charged with storms, / But feebly flutters, yet untaught to fly; / Or, flying, short her flight, and sure her fall."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Fierce passions, so mismeasured to this scene, / Stretch'd out, like eagles' wings, beyond our nest, / Far, far beyond the worth of all below, / For earth too large, presage a nobler flight, / And evidence our title to the skies."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Yet still, through their disgrace [the passions'], no feeble ray / Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell: / But these (like that fallen monarch [Adam] when reclaim'd) / When Reason moderates the rein aright, / Shall re-ascend, remount their former sphere, / Where once they soar'd il...
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Sense! take the rein; blind Passion! drive us on; / And, Ignorance! befriend us on our way; / Ye new, but truest patrons of our peace! Yes; give the Pulse full empire; live the Brute, / Since as the Brute we die."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"The aspiring Soul, / Ardent and tremulous, like flame, ascends; / Zeal and Humility her wings to heaven."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1746
"Now, while I taste the Sweetness of the Shade, / While Nature lies around deep-lull'd in Noon, / Now come, bold Fancy, spread a daring Flight, / And view the Wonders of the torrid Zone."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1759
"Fair Pupil, shake off Soul-depressing Vice, / That wing'd with Faith, your Soul may upward rise / Fly from alluring Snares of guileful Joy, / Let Reason's pure Delights your Mind employ."
preview | full record— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)
Date: 1760
"O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay, / Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day, / And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, / Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1761, 1790
"Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight / She [the mind] looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight; / Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam / From this dull earth, and seek her native home."
preview | full record— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)
Date: 1761, 1765
"But, after Fancy's eagle-flights were o'er, / And heav'n-illumin'd Genius could no more; / Thus, conscious all his best essays how vain, / Might the rapt bard conclude his humble strain."
preview | full record— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)