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...
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1785
"The effort rude to quench the cheering flame / Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze / With sullen envy, and admiring pride, / Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair / Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense, / And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam."
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1785
"O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing / red with the milder ray / Of soft humanity, and kindness bland: / So wide its influence, that the bright beams / Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge, / Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed, / Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total n...
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1786
"So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly, / Then fade:--and leave me, to despair and die!"
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: 1786
"But when thy envied sanction crowns my lays, / A ray of pleasure lights my languid mind, / For well I know the value of thy praise."
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: 1788
"Since there is no convexity in MIND, / Why are thy genial beams to parts confined?"
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1788
"'Tis ever Nature's gen'rous view; / Great minds should noble ends pursue; / As the clear sun-beam, when most bright, / Warms, in proportion to its light."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: 1788
"Ye! who can selfish cares forego, / To pity those which others know; / As Light, that from its centre strays, / To glad all Nature with its rays; / Oh! ease the pangs ye stoop to share, / And rescue millions from despair!"
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: 1791, 1806
"I'll snatch a ray of hope, / For Hope's the lamp divine / That lights and vivifies the fainting soul, / With ecstacies beyond the pow'rs of song!"
preview | full record— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)
Date: 1793, 1806
"'Twas Instinct rushing thro' her beating breast! / Instinct, the lamp divine that lights the soul"
preview | full record— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)