James Thomson Quotes
James Thomson's verses feel grand, painting nature, simplicity, and beauty in vivid words.
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Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.
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Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove An unrelenting foe to love, And, when we meet a mutual heart, Come in between and bid us part?
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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 will be slaves.
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A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems, Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain, On virtue still, and nature's pleasing themes, Poured forth his unpremeditated strain.
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I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?
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See, Winter comes to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad.
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Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail!
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Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
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There studious let me sit, And hold high converse with the mighty dead.
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Ships dim-discovered dropping from the clouds.
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Sighed and looked unutterable things.
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Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come.
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The negligence of Nature wide and wild, Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreads Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.
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Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot.
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An elegant sufficiency, content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books.
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Crowned with the sickle, and the wheaten sheaf, While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain, Comes jovial on.
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Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare! Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat Retired-
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For loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is when unadorned adorned the most.
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Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls, Boils round the naked melancholy isles Of farthest Thule, and th' Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.
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That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.
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But who can paint like Nature? Can imagination boast, amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
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Ingratitude is treason to mankind.
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Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise, of health.
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I think a bishop who doesn't give offence to anyone is probably not a good bishop.
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Statues and pictures and verse may be grand, But they are not the Life for which they stand.
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For life is but a dream whose shapes return, some frequently, some seldom, some by night and some by day.
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More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.
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The world rolls round forever like a mill; it grinds out death and life and good and ill; it has no purpose, heart or mind or will.
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Peace is the happy natural state of man; war is corruption and disgrace.
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'Tis easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it.
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Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail And perish in your perishing unblest. And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope Of all our universe, with desperate hope To find some solace for your wild unrest.
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“As I came through the desert, thus it was...”
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“Our Mother feedeth thus our little life, That we may in turn feed her with our death”
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Give a man a horse he can ride, give a man a boat he can sail; and his rank and wealth, his strength and health on sea nor shore shall fa