page 6 of 20     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1730

A "mimic gleam of transient light" may break through the gloom of dullness "and then they think they write"

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

preview | full record

Date: 1730

"Whether we send our Reason's piercing Rays / Beneath the Great, unbounded Deep, / Where Storms and Tempests sleep, / Whether unrein'd Imagination strays / Thro' the black, Howling Desart's pathless Ways, / The Deep and Howling Wilderness declare / The Omnipresent Godhead there."

— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)

preview | full record

Date: 1730

"Whether amid the Gloom we stray, / And send our Intellectual Ray / Up to the pure, cærulean Plains on high, / There all the Glories of the Sky, / As round the liquid Space / They run their bright, ætherial Race."

— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)

preview | full record

Date: 1730

"As thus we talk'd, / Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale / That portion of divinity, that ray / Of purest Heaven, which lights the glorious flame / Of patriots, and of heroes."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

preview | full record

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)

preview | full record

Date: 1730

"Fancy, fair Mistress of the Poet's Mind, / For ever changing, yet, for ever kind; / Soft, o'er his Dreams, her formful Radiance shed, / And his rapt Soul thro' Heaven's thin Purlieus led; / Seated beside the Star-invading Dame, / Whose Steeds, Wind-footed, paw'd the lambent Flame, / High, as a W...

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

preview | full record

Date: 1730

"And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend, / In whom the human graces all unite: / Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart; / Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense, / By decency chastised; goodness and wit, / In seldom-meeting harmony combined; / Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal / F...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

preview | full record

Date: 1733

Sights may be perform'd, "illusive scene! / By magick lantern of the spleen"

— Green, Matthew (1696-1737) [pseud. Peter Drake, a Fisherman of Brentford]

preview | full record

Date: 1733-4

"Reason itself but gives it edge and pow'r; / As Heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sowr"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

preview | full record

Date: 1734, 1753

"Were it a crime in flashing souls, to rise, / And strike each other thro' the meeting eyes; / Those op'ning windows had not let in light, / Nor stream'd ideas out, to voice the sight."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

preview | full record

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.