Date: 1684

"In proper Cells her large capacious Brain / The images of all things does contain, / As bright almost as were th'Ideas laid, / In the last model e'er the World was made."

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

Date: 1703

"When Souls are first to their close Rooms confin'd, / Nothing of their Celestial Make is seen, / Obscuring Earth does interpose between"

— Chudleigh [née Lee], Mary, Lady Chudleigh (bap. 1656, d. 1710)

Date: 1703

"The streiten'd Intellect immur'd does lie, / Shut up within a narrow place, / Till Nature does enlarge the Space, / And by degrees the Organs fit, / For those great Operations which are wrought by it."

— Chudleigh [née Lee], Mary, Lady Chudleigh (bap. 1656, d. 1710)

Date: 1737

"Yet when my trembling Soul's dislodg'd, wou'd be / No Room of State within the Grave for me."

— Rowe [née Singer], Elizabeth (1674-1737)

Date: 1785

"Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light / To the dark soul; impatient, she rejects, / And fain would push the heavenly stranger back; / She loathes the cranny which admits the day; / Confused, afraid of the intruding guest; / Disturbed, unwilling to receive the beam, / Which to herself her n...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

"The effort rude to quench the cheering flame / Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze / With sullen envy, and admiring pride, / Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair / Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense, / And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

"Oft as I trod my native wilds alone, / Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die; / The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped / By liberal converse, rude ideas strove / Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)