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: 1703
"Trust not to that; / Rage is the shortest Passion of our Souls, / Like narrow Brooks that rise with sudden Show'rs, / It swells in haste, and falls again as soon; / Still as it ebbs the softer Thoughts flow in, / And the Deceiver Love supplies its place."
preview | full record— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)
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: 1719
"I was not so much surpriz'd with the Lightning, as I was with a Thought which darted into my Mind as swift as the Lightning it self: O my Powder!"
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
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: 1727
"The Soul of the Murther'd Person seeks no Revenge; all that Part is swallowed up in the Wonders of the eternal State, and Vengeance entirely resign'd to him to whom it belongs; but the Soul of the Murtherer is like the Ocean in a Tempest, he is in continual Motion, restless and raging; and the G...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
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)