Date: 1730

"Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, / Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home / Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth / In many a vain effort."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, / Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep, / A dire descent! beyond the power of frost, / Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge, / Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land unknown, / What water, of the still unfrozen eye, / In the loose marsh or solitary lak...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"Nor absent are those tuneful shades, I ween, / Taught by the Graces, whose inchanting touch / Shakes every passion from the various string; / Not those, who solemnize the moral scene."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"As thus we talk'd, / Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale / That portion of divinity, that ray / Of purest Heaven, which lights the glorious flame / Of patriots, and of heroes."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"But if doom'd, / In powerless humble fortune, to repress / These ardent risings of the kindling soul; / Then, even superior to ambition, we / Would learn the private virtues."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"And when with these the serious thought is foil'd, / We, shifting for relief, would play the shapes / Of frolic fancy; and incessant form / Unnumber'd pictures, fleeting o'er the brain / Yet rapid still renew'd, and pour'd immense / Into the mind, unbounded without space."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"Close crowds the shining atmosphere; and binds / Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace, / Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood; / Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves, / In swifter sallies darting to the brain; / Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool, / Bright ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes!/ Inflames imagination; through the breast / Infuses every tenderness; and far / Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight / To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent; / Where, by the potent sun elated high, / The vineyard swells refulgent on the day; / Spreads o'er the vale; or up the mountain climbs, / Profuse; and drinks amid the sunny rocks, / From cliff to cliff increase...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting germs, / Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale / Into his freshen'd soul; her genial hours / He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows, / And not an opening blossom breathes in vain."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)