Date: 1653

"A thought for Breeding would a Travellour be, / The several Countries in the Brain to see; / Spurr'd with Desires he was, Booted with Hope, / His Cap Curios'ty, Patience was his Cloak: / Thus Suited, strait a Horse he did provide, / And Strong Imagination got to Ride; / Which Sadled with Ambitio...

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1653

"Some ways i'th' Brain were Ill, and Foul with all, / Which made him oft into deep Errours fall; / Oft was he hid by Mountains high of Fear, / Then slid down Precipices of Despair; / Woods of Forgetfulness he oft past through, / To find the Right way out, had much ado."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1736, 1737, 1759, 1744, 1771, 1773

"Female youth, left to weak woman's care" are "Strangers to reason and reflection made, / Left to their passions, and by them betrayed; / Untaught the noble end of glorious truth, / Bred to deceive even from earliest youth; / Unused to books, nor virtue taught to prize; / Whose mind, a savage was...

— Ingram, Anne [née Howard; other married name Douglas], Viscountess Irwin (c. 1696-1764)

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: 1748

"Thus on the sands of Afric's burning plains, / However deeply made, no long impress remains; / The lightest leaf can leave its figure there; / The strongest form is scattered by the air. / So yielding the warm temper of your mind,"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1748

The mind or heart may be like rock: "So numerous herds are driven o'er the rock, / No print is left of all the passing flock; / So sings the wind around the solid stone, / So vainly beat the waves with fruitless moan"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1762

"Thus thro' each diff'rent Track my Thoughts pursue, / Thy lov'd Idea ever meets my View."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"If by the Day's illusive Scenes misled, / My erring Soul from Virtue’s Path has stray'd; / Snar'd by example, or by Passion warm'd, / Some false Delight my giddy Sense has charm'd, / My calmer Thoughts the wretched Choice reprove, / And my best Hopes are center'd in thy Love."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1785

"Yon starry orbs, / Majestic ocean, flowery vales, gay groves, / Eye-wasting lawns, and heaven-attempting hills / Which bound th' horizon, and which curb the view; / All those, with beauteous imagery, awaked / My ravished soul to ecstasy untaught, / To all the transport the rapt sense can bear; /...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

"O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing / red with the milder ray / Of soft humanity, and kindness bland: / So wide its influence, that the bright beams / Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge, / Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed, / Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total n...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)