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Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above;
With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour
Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour.
―Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day
One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display!
From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd,
And one great Slaughter-house the warring world!"

— Erasmus Darwin

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More quotes by Erasmus Darwin

And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

And the mass starts into a million suns;
Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issue from the first.

The Botanic Garden (1791)

On the blasted heath
Fell Upas sits, the hydra-tree of death.

Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course
Her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse;
Whose hungry larva eats its living way,
Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day.

The Temple of Nature (1804)

The wing'd Ichneumon for her embryon young
Gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng.
The cruel larva mines its silky course,
And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Erasmus Darwin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.