Date: 1744

"Fierce passions, so mismeasured to this scene, / Stretch'd out, like eagles' wings, beyond our nest, / Far, far beyond the worth of all below, / For earth too large, presage a nobler flight, / And evidence our title to the skies."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Think not our passions from Corruption sprung, / Though to Corruption now they lend their wings; / That is their mistress, not their mother."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"I see, / I feel a grandeur in the Passions too, / Which speaks their high descent, and glorious end; / Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Like the proud Eastern [Nebuchadnezzar], struck by Providence, / What, though our passions are run mad, and stoop, / With low terrestrial appetite, to graze / On trash, on toys, dethroned from high desire?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Yet still, through their disgrace [the passions'], no feeble ray / Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell: / But these (like that fallen monarch [Adam] when reclaim'd) / When Reason moderates the rein aright, / Shall re-ascend, remount their former sphere, / Where once they soar'd il...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Whence, then, those thoughts? those towering thoughts that flew / Such monstrous heights?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"In Lust's dominion, and in Passion's storm, / Truth's system broken, scatter'd fragments lay: / (As light in chaos, glimmering through the gloom)."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

""Reason with Inclination why at war? / Why sense of guilt? Why Conscience up in arms?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"The thorns shoot up! What thorns in every thought! / Why sense of better? It embitters worse."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"Ye towering hopes, abortive energies! / That toss and struggle in my lying breast, / To scale the skies, and build presumptions there, / As I were heir of an eternity."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)