Date: 1726

"The Year, yet pleasing, but declining fast, / Soft, o'er the secret Soul, in gentle Gales, / A Philosophic Melancholly breathes, / And bears the swelling Thought aloft to Heaven."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"Emblem instructive of the virtuous man, / Who keeps his temper'd mind serene and pure, / And every passion aptly harmonized, / Amid a jarring world with vice inflamed."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"'Fear not,' he said, 'Sweet innocence! thou stranger to offence, / And inward storm!'"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728

"Can / The stormy Passions in his Bosom rowl, / While every Gale is Peace, and every Grove / Is Melody?"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728

Strait the fierce Storm involves his Mind anew, / Flames thro' the Nerves, and boils along the Veins; / While anxious Doubt distracts the tortur'd Heart; / For even the sad Assurance of his Fears / Were Heaven to what he feels."

— 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

"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)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"While he, from all the stormy passions free / That restless men involve, hears, and but hears, / At distance safe, the human tempest roar, / Wrapp'd close in conscious peace."

— 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)

Date: 1748

"What, what is virtue, but repose of mind, / A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm?"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)