Edward Young (1683 – 1765)
English poet, best remembered for Night Thoughts.
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge,
Produce their debt instead of their discharge.
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.
Prayer ardent opens heaven.
A soul without reflection, like a pile
Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.
With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue,
Forever most divinely in the wrong.
We see time’s furrows on another’s brow,
And death intrench’d, preparing his assault;
How few themselves in that just mirror see!
There buds the promise of celestial worth.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
While man is growing, life is in decrease;
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun.
Man wants little, nor that little long.
Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer.
The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world.
A God all mercy is a God unjust.
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
He weeps! the falling drop puts out the sun; He sighs! the sigh earth's deep foundation shakes. If in His love so terrible, what then His wrath inflamed?
A Christian is the highest style of man.
Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
One to destroy, is murder by the law;
And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe;
To murder thousands takes a specious name,
War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.