Date: 1744

"That tyrant, Hope, mark how she domineers: / She bids us quit realities for dreams; / Safety and peace, for hazard and alarm: / That tyrant o'er the tyrants of the soul."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Hope, like a cordial, innocent, though strong, / Man's heart at once inspirits and serenes."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Nor dreadful our transition; though the mind, / An artist at creating self-alarms, / Rich in expedients for inquietude, / Is prone to paint it dreadful."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Death, and his image rising in the brain, / Bear faint resemblance; never are alike: / Fear shakes the pencil; Fancy loves excess; / Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades: And these the formidable picture draw."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"What wretched repetition cloys us here! / What periodic potions for the sick, / Distemper'd bodies, and distemper'd minds!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Or, spider-like, spin out our precious all, / Our more than vitals spin (if no regard / To great futurity) in curious webs / Of subtle thought, and exquisite design, / (Fine net-work of the brain!) to catch a fly, / The momentary buzz of vain renown, / A name, a mortal immortality?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"These Reason, with an energy Divine, / O'erleaps, and claims the Future and Unseen; / The vast Unseen, the Future fathomless! / When the great soul buoys up to this high point, / Leaving gross Nature's sediments below, / Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits / The sage and hero of the fiel...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"When I behold a genius bright and base, / Of towering talents, and terrestrial aims; / Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere, / The glorious fragments of a soul immortal, / With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Souls truly great dart forward, on the wing / Of just Ambition, to the grand result, / The curtain's fall."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"By toys entangled, or in guilt bemired, / [Ambition] turns a curse; it is our chain and scourge / In this dark dungeon, where confined we lie, / Close-grated by the sordid bars of sense; / All prospect of eternity shut out; / And, but for execution, ne'er set free."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)