Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"Black Night comes on, and interrupts the Day, / E'er it can chase the Mists and Fogs away; / The Dregs of Flesh and Drossy Lees, o'errun / The Soul, and weigh the strugling Spirit down:"

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"If once right Reason drives that Cloud away, / Truth breaks upon us with resistless Day."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1712

"And as the Sun by his own Heat exhales / Clouds from the Sea, and Fogs from marshy Vales; / Which (tho' base-born) ambitious higher move, / Prevent the Light, and hide the Worlds above. / So from corporeal Dregs the Mists condense, / And intercept the Messengers of Sense."

— Cobb, Samuel (1675-1713); Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718); Quillet, Claudius (fl.1640-1656)

Date: 1712

"The clouded Images their March delay, / Till the rouz'd Soul, by a superiour Ray / Breaks thro' the Shade, and urges on the Day."

— Cobb, Samuel (1675-1713); Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718); Quillet, Claudius (fl.1640-1656)

Date: 1712

"Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light? / She [the mind] moves unweary'd, as the active Fire, / And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1726, 1753

"Boundless desire, aw'd hope, and doubtful joy, / Stormy, by turns, the veering heart employ; / Sick'ning, in fancy's sun-shine, now, we faint, / And licence wounds us deeper, than restraint."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1730

"Close crowds the shining atmosphere; and binds / Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace, / Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood; / Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves, / In swifter sallies darting to the brain; / Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool, / Bright ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1738, 1792

"But soon a beam, emissive from above, / Shed mental day, and touch'd the heart with love; / Gave jealous rage to know Divine Controul, / And ruled the tempest rising in the soul."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1742

"Through chinks, styled organs, dim Life peeps at light; / Death bursts the' involving cloud, and all is day; / All eye, all ear, the disembodied power."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Still spread a healing mist before the mind; / And lest we err by Wit's wild dancing light, / Secure us kindly in our native night."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)