Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"What pity then / Should sloth's unkindly fogs depress to earth / Her [the soul's] tender blossom; choak the streams of life, / And blast her spring!"

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

Man was ordained to "To chase each partial purpose from his breast; / And through the mists of passion and of sense, / And through the tossing tide of chance and pain, / To hold his course unfaultering, while the voice / Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent / Of nature, calls him to his high ...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Vehement and swift / As lightening fires the aromatic shade / In Æthiopian fields, the stripling felt / Her inspiration catch his fervid soul, / And starting from his languor thus exclaim'd."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1745

"The Duties of his Day / Were all discharg'd, and gratefully enjoy'd / It's noblest Blessings; calm, as Evening Skies, / Was his pure Mind, and lighted up with Hopes / That open Heaven; when, for his last long Sleep / Timely prepar'd, a Lassitude of Life, / A pleasing Weariness of mortal Joy, / F...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"Few get above this turbid Scene of Strife, / Few gain the Summit, breathe that purest Air, / That heavenly Ether, which untroubled sees / The Storm of Vice and Passion rage below."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"Tho' practis'd long in Courts, / I have not so far learn'd their subtle Trade, / To veer obedient with each Gust of Passion."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"Oh! Words are weak, / To paint the Pangs, the Rage, the Indignation; / That whirl'd from Thought to Thought my Soul in Tempest, / Now on the Point to burst, and now by Shame / Repress'd."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"But This, my Friend, these stormy Gusts of Pride / Are foreign to my Love--Till Sigismunda / Be disabus'd, my Breast is Tumult all, / And can obey no settled Course of Reason. / I see Her still, I feel her powerful Image!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"At first his Passions burst / Quick as the Lightning's Flash: but in his Breast / Honour and Justice dwell--Trust me, to Reason / He will return."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1746

"Or by the vocal Woods and Waters lull'd, / And lost in lonely Musing, in the Dream, / Confus'd, of careless Solitude, where mix / Ten thousand wandering Images of Things; / Soothe every Gust of Passion into Peace; / All but the Swellings of the soften'd Heart, / That waken, not disturb, the tran...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)