Date: 1742

"At home a stranger, / Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, / And wondering at her own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Where roll my thoughts / To rest from wonders? Other wonders rise; / And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught; / Heaven's sovereign blessings, clustering from the cross, / Rush on her in a throng, and close her round, / The prisoner of amaze!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of Death, / To break the shock blind Nature cannot shun, / And lands Thought smoothly on the farther shore."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"But let not these inexpiable strains / Condemn the Muse that knows her dignity; / Nor meanly stops at Time, but holds the world--/ As 'tis, in Nature's ample field, a point--/ A point in her esteem; from whence to start, / And run the round of universal space, / To visit being universal there, ...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Darkness has more divinity for me: / It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul / To settle on herself, our point supreme! / There lies our theatre; there sits our judge."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Nor is it strange; light, motion, concourse, noise, / All scatter us abroad; Thought, outward-bound, / Neglectful of our home-affairs, flies off / In fume and dissipation, quits her charge, / And leaves the breast unguarded to the foe."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Conscious how needful discipline to man, / From pleasing dalliance with the charms of Night, / My wandering thought recalls, to what excites / Far other beat of heart,-- Narcissa 's tomb!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Reason progressive, Instinct is complete: / Swift Instinct leaps; slow Reason feebly climbs."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)