Date: 1660

"Things that the least of drossy mixture hold, / Last longest; my Hearts flames Ætherial be, / More pure than seven times refined Gold / Than Cedar's flames: rays of a Deitie / They are."

— Pordage, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. c. 1691)

Date: 1689

"In vain they strive your glorious Lamp to hide / In that dark Lanthorn to all noble minds, / Which, through the smallest cranny is descry'd, / Whose force united no resistance finds"

— Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)

Date: 1703

Souls are "Like Tapers hid in Urns they shine. / The Life of Sense and Growth we only see, / Which Beasts enjoy as well as we."

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

Date: 1735

"Her lovely Mind shines chearful thro' her Face, / A sacred Lamp in a fair Crystal Case."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1747

"Her Mind does all their glorious Beams dispense, / Bright as they are they owe their Rays to Sense."

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

Date: w. 1739, 1762

Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Where, to the Beam of intellectual Day, / The genuine Charms of moral Beauty play: / With pleasing Force the strong Attractions move / Each finer Sense, and tune it into Love."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Lif...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"'Till then [death], the Muse essays the tuneful Art, / To fix her moral Lesson on thy Heart, / Illume thy Soul with Virtue's brightest Flame, / And point it to that Heav'n from whence it came."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

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)