252 quotes
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day!
And beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn.
Night-Thoughts (1742)
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
Night-Thoughts (1742)
’Tis impious in a good man to be sad
Night-Thoughts (1742)
An undevout astronomer is mad.
Night-Thoughts (1742)
Who rounded in his palm these spacious orbs
* * * * * *
Numerous as gliterring gems of morning dew,
Or sparks from populous cities in a blaze,
And set the bosom of old night on fire.
A God alone can comprehend a God.
Against their wills what numbers ruin shun,
Purely through want of wit to be undone!
Nature has shown by making it so rare,
That wit's a jewel which we need not wear.
But if man loses all, when life is lost,
He lives a coward, or a fool expires.
A daring infidel (and such there are,
From pride, example, lucre, rage, revenge,
Or pure heroical defect of thought),
Of all earth's madmen, most deserves a chain.
Such blessings Nature pours,
O'erstock'd mankind enjoy but half her stores.
In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,
She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green;
Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace
And waste their music on the savage race.
O how loud
It calls devotion! genuine growth of night!
Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!
An undevout Astronomer is mad.
Beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.
Night-Thoughts (1742)
Britannia's shame! There took her gloomy flight,
On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul…
Less base the fear of death than fear of life.
O Britain! infamous for suicide.
A man of sense can artifice disdain,
As men of wealth may venture to go plain.
* * * * * *
I find the fool when I behold the screen,
For 'tis the wise man's interest to be seen.
... life is most enjoy'd when courted least, most worth, when disesteemed,...
Night-Thoughts (1742)
The course of nature governs all!
The course of nature is the heart of God.
The miracles thou call'st for, this attest;
For say, could nature nature's course control?
But, miracles apart, who sees Him not?
Our dying friends are pioneers to smooth 280
Our rugged pass to death; to break those bars
Of terror, and abhorrence, Nature throws
Cross our obstructed way; and thus to make
Welcome, as safe, our port from ev'ry storm.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
Night-Thoughts (1742)
Leisure is pain; take off our chariot wheels,
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain,
It makes us wander, wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, thought.