Date: 1773

"Fancy might now her silken pinions try  / To rise from earth, and sweep th' expanse on high"

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)

Date: 1773

"Such were the working thoughts which swelled the breast / Of generous BOSWEL."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: w. c. 1751, 1775

"And see, with these is holy Friendship found, / With chrystal bosom open to the sight; / Her gentle hand fhall close the recent wound, / And fill the vacant heart with calm delight."

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

Date: w. c. 1749, 1775

"A solemn stillness creeps upon my soul, / And all its pow'rs in deep attention die."

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

Date: 1775

"How like a wanton lamb that careless play'd, / The shepherd and the fold forgotten quite, / My vagrant soul, in search of vain delight, / Many long years from her true Shepherd stray'd!"

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

Date: 1777

"Thus oft, from shop of brain, I try / To throw the dirt and rubbish by; / But still they gain their former state, / Or leave a vacuum in the pate."

— Savage, Mary (fl. 1763-1777)

Date: 1777

"At present in my brain there floats / A thousand parti-colored motes; / From which, if time would but permit, / I might sift some sparks of wit."

— Savage, Mary (fl. 1763-1777)

Date: 1780

Reason's subjects work and return home with "treasures fraught" and display before their queen their "shining spoils, which are laid up in "mental stores."

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)

Date: 1784

"Had I the dread necessity explained, / That with resistless force my freedom chained; / Tore the sweet bands, by virtuous passion tied, / And stampt our constancy with parricide."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1784

"Ah! season of delight!--could aught be found / To soothe awhile the tortur'd bosom's pain, / Of Sorrow's rankling shaft to cure the wound, / And bring life's first delusions once again, / 'Twere surely met in thee!."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)