Date: 1842

"Regret came shivering through my veins, / And bound my tongue in iron chains; / My soul in prison seem'd to be / And ever must if torn from thee."

— Blamire, Susanna (1747-1794)

Date: 1842

"Absence cannot guard the cell / Where wayward thoughts are doom'd to dwell"

— Blamire, Susanna (1747-1794)

Date: 1842

"And ere the sentence left its hallow'd cave, / Would tell what thought was venturing next abroad. / Nor had Disguise in all her face or soul / One place to hide her poor and artful head; / Truth and her train had tenanted each cell, / And honest Friendship at the portal stood / To point or tell ...

— Blamire, Susanna (1747-1794)

Date: c. 1862

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- / The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -- / The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' / And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1890

"The soul selects her own society, / Then shuts the door; / On her divine majority / Obtrude no more."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1892

"So, safer, guess, with just my soul / Upon the window-pane / Where other creatures put their eyes, / Incautious of the sun."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1892

"A deed knocks first at thought, / And then it knocks at will."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1892

"It then goes out an act, / Or is entombed so still / That only to the ear of God / Its doom is audible."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1892

"The body grows outside,-- / The more convenient way,-- / That if the spirit like to hide, / Its temple stands alway // Ajar, secure, inviting."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1892

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted, / One need not be a house; / The brain has corridors surpassing / Material place."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)