Date: 1730

"What dreadful havoc in the human breast / The passions make, when unconfin'd, and mad, / They burst, unguided by the mental eye, / The light of reason; which in various ways / Points them to good, or turns them back from ill."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"O save me from the tumult of the soul! / From the wild beasts within!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"All deaths, all tortures, in one pang combin'd, / Are gentle to the tempest of the mind."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"This rising day / Saw Sophonisba, from the height of life, / Thrown to the very brink of slavery: / State, honours, armies vanquish'd; nothing left / But her own great unconquerable mind."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"See there the ruins of the noble mind, / When from calm reason passion tears the sway."

— 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: 1735-6

"Snatch'd by these wonders to that world where thought / Unfetter'd ranges, Fancy's magic hand / Led me anew o'er all the solemn scene, / Still in the mind's pure eye more solemn dress'd."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"Yielded reason speaks the soul a slave."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"The Persian fetters, that inthrall'd the mind, / Were turn'd to formal and apparent chains."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"His mental eye first launch'd into the deeps of boundless ether; where unnumber'd orbs, / Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky / Unerring roll, and wind their steady way."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)