Night Thoughts 2

The Virtues grow on immortality:
That root destroy'd, they wither and expire.
A Deity believ'd, will nought avail:
Rewards and punishments make God ador'd;
And hopes and fears give Conscience all her pow'r.
As in the dying parent dies the child,
Virtue, with immortality, expires.
Who tells me he denies his soul immortal,
Whate'er his boast, has told me he's a knave.
His duty 'tis to love himself alone;
Nor care though mankind perish, if he smiles.
Who thinks ere-long the man shall wholly die,
Is dead already; nought but brute survives.
— Reverend Dr. Edward Young, The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality, from "Night the Seventh," p. 157.

     How frail, men, things! how momentary both.
Fantastic chase, of shadows hunting shades!
The gay, the busy, equal, though unlike;
Equal in wisdom, differently wise!
Thro' flow'ry meadows, and thro' dreary wastes.
One bustling, and one dancing, into death
There's not a day, but, to the man of thought
Betrays some secret, that throws new reproach
On life, and makes him sick of seeing more.
The scenes of bus'ness tells us — "What are men?"
The scenes of pleasure — "What is all beside":
There, others we despise; and here, ourselves.
Amidst disgust eternal, dwells delight?
'tis approbation strikes the string of joy.
— Reverend Dr. Edward Young, Ibid., from "Night the Eighth," p. 168.

    Poor MACHIAVEL! who labour'd hard his plan,
Forgot, that genius need not go to school;
Forgot, that man, without a tutor wise,
His plan had practis'd, long before 'twas writ.
The world's all title-page, there's no contents;
The world's all face; the man who shews his heart
Is whooted for his nudities, and scorn'd.
A man I knew who liv'd upon a smile;
And well it fed him; he look'd plump and fair,
Whilst rankest venom foam'd through ev'ry vein.
— Reverend Dr. Edward Young, Ibid., p. 175.

The sick in body call for aid; the sick
In mind are covetous of more disease;
And when at worst, they dream themselves quite well.
To know ourselves diseas'd, is half our cure.
— Reverend Dr. Edward Young, Ibid., from "Night the Ninth," p. 204

     Thrice happy they! that enter now the court
Heav'n opens in their bosoms: But, how rare!
Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare!
What hero, like the man who stands himself?
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone?
Who hears, intrepid, the full charge it brings,
Resolv'd to silence future murmurs there?
The coward flies; and, flying, is undone.
(Art thou a cowaed? No) The coward flies:
Thinks, but thinks slightly; asks, but fears to know:
Asks, 'What is Truth?' with Pilate; and retires;
Dissolves the court, and mingles with the throng;
Asylum sad, from Reason, Hope, and Heav'n!
— Reverend Dr. Edward Young, Ibid., p. 209.

     Devotion! daughter of astronomy!
An undevout astronomer is mad.
True, all things speak a GOD;  but in the small,
Men trace out Him; in great He seizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and raps, and fills
With new inquiries, 'mid associates new.
— Reverend Dr. Edward Young, Ibid., p. 223.

Awake then; thy Philander calls: Awake!
Thou, who shalt wake, when the creation sleeps:
When, like a taper, all these sons expire;
When time, like him of Gaza in his wrath,
Plucking the pillars that support the world,
In Nature's ample ruins lies entomb'd:
And Midnight, universal Midnight! reigns.
— Reverend Dr. Edward Young, Ibid., p. 266.