Date: 1744

"When I behold a genius bright and base, / Of towering talents, and terrestrial aims; / Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere, / The glorious fragments of a soul immortal, / With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust."

— 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

"Our senses, as our reason, are Divine. / But for the magic organ's powerful charm, / Earth were a rude, uncolour'd chaos still. / Objects are but the' occasion: ours the' exploit; / Ours is the cloth, the pencil, and the paint, / Which Nature's admirable picture draws, / And beautifies Creation'...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"What wealth in Intellect, that sovereign power, / Which Sense and Fancy summons to the bar; / Interrogates, approves, or reprehends; / And from the mass those underlings import, / From their materials sifted, and refined, / And in Truth's balance accurately weigh'd, / Forms art and science, gove...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743, 1745

"'Tis Power's supreme prerogative to stamp / On others' minds an image of its own"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"A world, where Lust of Pleasure, Grandeur, Gold, / Three demons that divide its realms between them, / With strokes alternate buffet to and fro / Man's restless heart, their sport, their flying ball; / Till with the giddy circle sick and tired, / It pants for peace, and drops into despair."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Such is the world Lorenzo's wisdom wooes, / And on its thorny pillow seeks repose; / A pillow which, like opiates ill-prepared, / Intoxicates, but not composes; fills / The visionary mind with gay chimeras, / All the wild trash of sleep, without the rest; / What unfeign'd travail, and what dream...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Pleasures obscene are various, as the throng / Of passions that can err in human hearts; / Mistake their objects, or transgress their bounds."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"A soul in commerce with her God is heaven; / Feels not the tumults and the shocks of life; / The whirls of passions, and the strokes of heart."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Tis the cradle of the Soul, / From Instinct sent, to rock her in disease, / Which her physician, Reason, will not cure."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)