Date: 1660

"Things that the least of drossy mixture hold, / Last longest; my Hearts flames Ætherial be, / More pure than seven times refined Gold / Than Cedar's flames: rays of a Deitie / They are."

— Pordage, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. c. 1691)

Date: 1682

"'Tis not a Flash of Fancy which sometimes / Dasling our Minds, sets off the slightest Rimes; / Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done; / True Wit is everlasting, like the Sun; / Which though sometimes beneath a cloud retir'd, / Breaks out again, and is by all admir'd."

— Sheffield, John, first duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721)

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...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)

Date: 1689

"In vain they strive your glorious Lamp to hide / In that dark Lanthorn to all noble minds, / Which, through the smallest cranny is descry'd, / Whose force united no resistance finds"

— Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)

Date: 1697

"But he Employ'd to set their Judgments right, / No Force but Reason's mild but powerful Light."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Oh, let no groundless Prejudice oppose / The Light, that from so pure a Fountain flows. / May these kind Beams dispel the Clouds, and find / An unobstructed Passage to your Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Then climbs the Mind to the first glorious Cause, / And his bright Image by this Model draws. / Freedom of Choice, pure Intellectual Light, / Power Independent, Goodness Infinite, / To form the great Idea we unite."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1699

"Our Understanding they [the passions] with darkness fill, / Cause strange Conceptions, and pervert the Will."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1699

"Reason's a Taper, which but faintly burns: / A Languid Flame that glows and dies by turns: / We see't a while, and but a little way / We travel by its Light, as Men by Day; / But quickly dying, it forsakes us soon; / Like Morning Stars that never stay till Noon."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1700

"The Lamp of Life burns dimly in my Breast, / Soon from its beating toil my weary Heart will rest."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)