English poet (1683-1765)
Can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
Who gives an empire, by the gift defeats
All end of giving; and procures contempt
Instead of gratitude.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Brothers
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the vestibule;
Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death,
Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar,
This gross impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of existence free.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.
EDWARD YOUNG
"Love of Fame, the Universal Passion", The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose of the Rev. Edward Young
Prayer ardent opens heaven.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
He that lives in perpetual suspicion lives the life of a sentinel--of a sentinel never relieved, whose business it is to look out for and expect an enemy, which is an evil not very far short of perishing by him.
EDWARD YOUNG
A Vindication of Providence; Or, A True Estimate of Human Life
Pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars
From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
This vast and solid earth, that blazing sun,
Those skies, thro' which it rolls, must all have end.
What then is man? The smallest part of nothing.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Revenge
On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows,
In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
EDWARD YOUNG
Love of Fame
The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart:
The proud to gain it toils on toils endure,
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.
EDWARD YOUNG
Love of Fame: The Universal Passion in Seven Characteristical Satires
Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
EDWARD YOUNG
Love of Fame: The Universal Passion in Seven Characteristical Satires
What angels guard, no longer dare neglect,
Slighting thyself, affront not God's respect.
EDWARD YOUNG
"The Last Day"
I fear no farther hell than that I feel.
EDWARD YOUNG
Busiris, King of Egypt: A Tragedy
Virtue alone has majesty in death.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
If he provokes a war, his empire shakes,
And all her lofty glories nod to ruin.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Brothers
Not all the pride of beauty;
Those eyes, that tell us what the sun is made of;
Those lips, whose touch is to be bought with life;
Those hills of driven snow, which seen are felt:
All these possessed are nought, but as they are
The proof, the substance of an inward passion,
And the rich plunder of a taken heart.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Revenge
The blood will follow where the knife is driven,
The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Revenge
Death joins us to the great majority.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Revenge
When men of infamy to grandeur soar,
They light a torch to show their shame the more.
EDWARD YOUNG
Love of Fame: The Universal Passion in Seven Characteristical Satires
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts