Date: 1742

"How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round / In silken thought, which reptile Fancy spun, / Till darken'd Reason lay quite clouded o'er / With soft conceit of endless comfort here, / Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"So bounded are its haughty lord's delights / To Woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss, / Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite, / Ravenous calamities our vitals seize, / And threatening fate wide opens to devour."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, / Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is found. / As from the wing no scar the sky retains, / The parted wave no furrow from the keel, / So dies in human hearts the thought of death."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Pride, like an eagle, builds among the stars; / But Pleasure, lark-like, nests upon the ground."

— 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: 1743

"The bad, on each punctilious pique of Pride, / Or gloom of Humour, would give Rage the rein, / Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark, / And mar the schemes of Providence below."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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)