Date: 1687
"This Heart of mine, now wreck'd upon despair, / Was once as free and careless as the Air; / In th' early Morning of my tender years, / E're I was sensible of Hopes and Fears, / It floated in a Sea of Mirth and Ease, / And thought the World was only made to please; / No adverse Wind had ever stop...
preview | full record— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)
Date: w. 1677, 1702
"Vain wandring Thoughts, that crowd within my Breast / Do oft obstruct my Soul from Solid Rest; / like to vagrant Clouds, obscure the Mind / Which should to serious watching be inclin'd."
preview | full record— Mollineux [née Southworth], Mary (1651-1695)
Date: 1712
"Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light? / She [the mind] moves unweary'd, as the active Fire, / And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1726, 1753
"But I have err'd; and, with delirious aim, / Would picture motion, and imprison flame. / He, who can light'ning's flash, to colours, bind, / May paint love's influence, on the burning mind."
preview | full record— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)
Date: 1734
"I'm in a raging storm, / Where seas and skies are blended, while my soul / Like some light worthless chip of floating cork / Is tost from wave to wave."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1742
"A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1762
"Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Lif...
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1755, 1771
"And yet, let but a zephyr's breath begin/ To stir the latent excellence within-- / Waked in that moment's elemental strife, / Impassion'd genius feels the breath of life; / The' expanding heart delights to leap and glow, / The pulse to kindle, and the tear to flow."
preview | full record— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)
Date: 1784
"Thy piercing thought / Unaided saw each movement of the mind, / As skilful artists view the small machine, / The secret springs and nice dependencies, / And to thy mimic scenes, by fancy wrought / To such a wond'rous shape, th'impassion'd breast / In floods of grief, or peals of laughter bow'd, ...
preview | full record— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)
Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"Like a snow-ball, the mind, fraught with peace in its prime, / Moves swiftly adown the steep shelvings of Time; / Accumulates filth from Society's sons, / And strengthens and hardens its coat as it runs; / Till habit on habit is negligent laid, / And the object appears motley, vile, and ill-made...
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)