Date: 1745

"Distraction!--O my Soul!--Hold, Reason, hold / Thy giddy Seat--O this inhuman Outrage / Unhinges Thought!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"But hold, my Soul, / Thy steady Purpose--Tost by various Passions, / To this eternal Anchor keep--There is, / Can be, no Public without Private Virtue."

— 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

"Thought drives on Thought, on Passions Passions roll; / Her Smiles alone can calm my raging Soul."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"But from my Soul to banish, / While weeping Memory there retains her Seat, / Thoughts which the purest Bosom might have cherish'd, / Once my Delight, now even in Anguish charming, / Is more, alas! my Lord, than I can promise."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"Rouse thee, for Shame! and if a Spark of Virtue / Lies slumbering in thy Soul, bid it blaze forth; / Nor sink unequal to the glorious Lesson, / This Day thy Lover gave thee from his Throne."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"For the fair Peace, / The tender Joys of Hymeneal Love, / May Jealousy awak'd, and fell Remorse, / Pour all their fiercest Venom thro' his Breast!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"Wild as Winds, / And fighting Seas, he raves. His Passions mix, / With ceaseless Rage, all in each giddy Moment."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)