Date: 1810
"Kindness can woo the Lion from his den, / A moral teaching to the sons of men; / His mighty heart in silken bonds can draw, / And bend his nature to sweet Pity's law."
preview | full record— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)
Date: 1814
"Give me to send the laughing bowl around, / My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound."
preview | full record— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)
Date: 1814, 1816, 1896
"To cherish Grace, and twine the golden chain, / Uniting Minds, and making one of twain."
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Date: 1815
"You bid me write to amuse the tedious hours, / And save from withering my poetic powers; / Hard is the task, my friend, for verse should flow / From the free mind, not fetter'd down by woe."
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1817
"On this scroll thou seest written in characters fair / A sun-beamy tale of a wreath, and a chain; / And, warrior, it nurtures the property rare / Of charming my mind from the trammels of pain."
preview | full record— Keats, John (1795-1821)
Date: 1852
"Ah! well for us, if even we, / Even for a moment, can get free / Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd; / For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!"
preview | full record— Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)
Date: 1868
"From sin and Satan's iron chain! / Our souls Thou offerest to release."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1868
"O make me free within / From pride, and passion's chain, / My spirit by Thy bonds release, / And bid me go in perfect peace."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1872
"At Shakespear's happy birth / With fire ethereal Jove his soul endow'd, / Then bade him spurn the narrow bounds of earth, / And sordid wishes of the grov'ling crowd, / That chain the free-born mind."
preview | full record— Laurence, French (1757-1809)
Date: 1928
"Or what is Hair but threads of gold / That Lovers Hearts in fetters hold?"
preview | full record— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)