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."
preview | full record— 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...
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Sense! take the rein; blind Passion! drive us on; / And, Ignorance! befriend us on our way; / Ye new, but truest patrons of our peace! Yes; give the Pulse full empire; live the Brute, / Since as the Brute we die."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"The aspiring Soul, / Ardent and tremulous, like flame, ascends; / Zeal and Humility her wings to heaven."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1745
"My fluttering Soul was all on Wing to find Thee, / My Love! my Sigismunda!"
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1746
"Now, while I taste the Sweetness of the Shade, / While Nature lies around deep-lull'd in Noon, / Now come, bold Fancy, spread a daring Flight, / And view the Wonders of the torrid Zone."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1748, 1749
"Like that bird on yonder spray, the imagination seems to be perpetually ready to take wing."
preview | full record— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Date: 1759
"Fair Pupil, shake off Soul-depressing Vice, / That wing'd with Faith, your Soul may upward rise / Fly from alluring Snares of guileful Joy, / Let Reason's pure Delights your Mind employ."
preview | full record— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)
Date: 1759
"His mighty mind travelled round the intellectual world; and, with a more than eagle's eye, saw, and has pointed out blank spaces, or dark spots in it, on which the human mind never shone."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1760
"O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay, / Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day, / And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, / Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)