Date: 1773

"Winter austere forbids me to aspire, / And northern tempests damp the rising fire; / They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea, / Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)

Date: 1773

"Yet of etherial temper are their souls, / And in their veins the tide of honour rolls; / And valour kindles there the hero's flame, / Contempt of death, and thirst of martial flame. / And pity melts the sympathizing breast, / Ah! fatal virtue!—for the brave distrest."

— Day, Thomas (1748-1789)

Date: 1773

"But if thou com'st with frown austere / To nurse the brood of care and fear; / To bid our sweetest passions die, / And leave us in their room a sigh; / Or if thine aspect stern have power / To wither each poor transient flower, / That cheers the pilgrimage of woe, / And dry the springs whence ho...

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

Date: 1774

"We live, alas! where the bright god of day, / Full from the zenith whirls his torrid ray: / Beneath the rage of his consuming fires, / All fancy melts, all eloquence expires."

— Williams, Francis (c.1697-1762)

Date: 1775

Lonely anguish may melt the heart

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1775

"My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; / And in my breast the imperfect joys expire."

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1775

"No passion raging like the roaring main, / But calm and gentle as a summer sea."

— Miss H******* (fl. 1751-1775)

Date: 1780, 1781, 1788

"Thy simple diction, free from glaring art, / With sweet allurement steals upon the heart, / Pure, as the rill, that Nature's hand refines; / Clear, as thy harmony of soul, it shines."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

The swell of pity may not be confined with "the scanty limits of the mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

Time is a river that fails to enrich the mind and "leaves a dreary waste behind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)