Date: 1743

"Dearly pays the soul / For lodging ill; too dearly rents her clay."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1748

"But how will this dismantled soul appear, / When stripped of all it lately held so dear, / Forced from its prison of expiring clay, / Afraid and shivering at the doubtful way?"

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

Date: August 4, 1778

"Behold! the soul shall waft away, / Whene'er we come to die, / And leave its cottage made of clay, / In twinkling of an eye."

— Hammon, Jupiter (1711-c.1800)

Date: January 1, 1779

"There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart."

— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)

Date: c. 1804-1811, 1818

"For every human heart has gates of brass & bars of adamant, / Which few dare unbar because dread Og & Anak guard the gates"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1817

"But he, the bard of every age and clime, / Of genius fruitful, ardent and sublime, / Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, pours / No spurious metal, fused from common ores, / But gold, to matchless purity refined, / And stamp'd with all the godhead in his mind."

— Gifford, William (1756-1826)