James Thomson Quotes

For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn.

Welcome, kindred glooms!
Congenial horrors, hail!

Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,
And, when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between and bid us part?

A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard becomes Who void of envy, guile and lust of gain,
On virtue still and nature's pleasing themes Poured forth his unpremeditated strain.

He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.

So stands the statue that enchants the world,
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.

Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade.

When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:
'Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.'

An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!

Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thulè, and th' Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.

For loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is when unadorned adorned the most.

Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.

They who are pleased themselves must always please.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot.

A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky:
There eke the soft delights that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh;
But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unrest
Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest.