Date: 1744

"But, Reason failing to discharge her trust, / Or to the deaf discharging it in vain, / A blunder follows; and blind Industry, / Gall'd by the spur, but stranger to the course, / (The course where stakes of more than gold are won,) / O'erloading, with the cares of distant age, / The jaded spirits...

— 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."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Think not our passions from Corruption sprung, / Though to Corruption now they lend their wings; / That is their mistress, not their mother."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Like the proud Eastern [Nebuchadnezzar], struck by Providence, / What, though our passions are run mad, and stoop, / With low terrestrial appetite, to graze / On trash, on toys, dethroned from high desire?"

— 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...

— 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."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Beneath what baleful planet, in what hour / Of desperation, by what Fury's aid, / In what infernal posture of the soul, / All hell invited, and all hell in joy / At such a birth, a birth so near of kin, / Did thy foul fancy whelp so black a scheme / Of hopes abortive, faculties half-blown, / And...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Nothing is dead; nay, nothing sleeps; each soul / That ever animated human clay / Now wakes, is on the wing; and where, O where, / Will the swarm settle?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Is it in words to paint you? O ye fallen! / Fallen from the wings of Reason, and of Hope!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Or, spider-like, spin out our precious all, / Our more than vitals spin (if no regard / To great futurity) in curious webs / Of subtle thought, and exquisite design, / (Fine net-work of the brain!) to catch a fly, / The momentary buzz of vain renown, / A name, a mortal immortality?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)