Date: 1729

"E'en not all these, in one rich lot combined, / Can make the happy man, without the mind; / Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys / The chain of reason with unerring gaze; / Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes, / His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise; / Where social lov...

— 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: 1735-6

"Yielded reason speaks the soul a slave."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"Thus human life, unhinged, to ruin reel'd,
And giddy Reason totter'd on her throne."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"Of one who, should the unkingly thirst of gold, / Or tyrant passions, or ambition, prompt, / Calls locust-armies o'er the blasted land:"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1744, 1746

"Wide-stretching from these shores, / A people savage from remotest time, / A huge neglected empire, one vast mind, / By Heaven inspired, from gothic darkness call'd."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

Chiefly one Charm / He in his graceful Character observes: / That tho' his Passions burn with high Impatience, / And sometimes, from a noble Heat of Nature, / Are ready to fly off, yet the least Check / Of ruling Reason brings them back to Temper, / And gentle Softness."

— 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

"The Man, whom Heaven appoints / To govern others, should himself first learn / To bend his Passions to the Sway of Reason."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1745

"But now not all my partial Heart can plead, / Shall ever shake th' unalterable Dictates / That tyrannize my Breast."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)