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."

— Mollineux [née Southworth], Mary (1651-1695)

Date: 1709

"How soft the first ideas prove, / Which wander through our minds!"

— Finch [née], Anne, countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"Thus far, our slow Imagination goes: / Wou'd the more skill'd THEANOR his disclose; / Expand the Scene, and open to our Sight / What to his nicer Judgment gives Delight; / Whose soaring Mind do's to Perfections climb, / Nor owns a Relish, but for Things sublime."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"An equal Partner in the vanquish'd Earth, / A Brother, not impos'd upon my Birth, / Too weak a Tye unequal Thoughts to bind, / But by the gen'rous Motions of the Mind."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"How soft the first Ideas prove, / Which wander through our Minds!"

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"Away the Skilful Doctor comes / Of Recipes and Med'cines full, / To check the giddy Whirl of Nature's Fires, / If so th' unruly Case requires; / Or with his Cobweb-cleansing Brooms / To sweep and clear the over-crouded Scull, / If settl'd Spirits flag, and make the Patient dull."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1741

"I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1747

"In Vain I strive with Female Art, / To hide the Motions of my Heart; / My Eyes my secret Flame declare, / And Damon reads his Triumph there."

— Lennox, née Ramsay, (Barbara) Charlotte (1730/1?-1804)

Date: 1746; December 17, 1747 [actually January, 1748]

"No more to fabled names confin’d, / To Thee! Supreme, all-perfect mind, / My thoughts direct their flight: / Wisdom’s thy gift, and all her force / From Thee deriv’d, unchanging source / Of intellectual light!"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1758

"Check not the flow of sweet fraternal love, / By Heav'n's high King in bounty giv'n, / Thy stubborn heart to soften and improve, / Thy earth-clad spirit to refine, / And gradual raise to love divine, / And wing its soaring flight to Heav'n!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)