Date: 1728

"BUT yonder breathing Prospect bids the Muse / Throw all her Beauty forth, that Daubing all / Will be to what I gaze; for who can paint / Like Nature? Can Imagination boast / Amid his gay Creation Hues like Her's? / And can He mix them with that matchless Skill, / And lay them on so delicately sw...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728

"But thro' the Heart / Should Jealousy it's Venom once diffuse, / 'Tis then delightful Misery no more, / But Agony unmixt, incessant Rage, / Corroding every Thought, and blasting all / The Paradise of Love."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1729

"Oh, let not then waste luxury impair / That manly soul of toil which strings your nerves, / And your own proper happiness creates!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"He, too, the fire of fancy feeds intense, / With all the train of passions thence derived: / Not kindling quick, a noisy transient blaze, / But gradual, silent, lasting, and profound."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"Lend me the plaint, which, to the lonely main, / With memory conversing, you will pour, / As on the pebbled shore you, pensive, stray"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"Whence Talbot's friendship glows to future times, / Intrepid, warm; of kindred tempers born; / Nursed, by experience, into slow esteem, / Calm confidence unbounded, love not blind, / And the sweet light from mingled minds disclosed, / From mingled chymic oils as bursts the fire."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"I too remember well that mental Bowl, / Which round his Table flow'd."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"His soul was fair, / Bright as the children of yon azure sheen!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"O who can speak the vigorous joys of health! / Unclogg'd the body, unobscured the mind."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"Let godlike reason, from her sovereign throne, / Speak the commanding word 'I will!' and it is done."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)