Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, lines 5-8 (1751).
Far from the sun and summer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid.
— 1757 Of William Shakespeare. The Progress of Poesy, l.83-4.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise.
— Thomas Gray, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
— Ode for Music (1769), line 2.
And hie him home, at evening's close, To sweet repast and calm repose.
One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree: Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.
— Cf. Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy, I. 3, line 41: The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.