Date: 1792

"More noble than the sycophant, whose art / Must heap with taudry flowers thy hated shrine; / I envy not the meed thou canst impart / To crown his service--while, tho' Pride combine / With Fraud to crush me--my unfetter'd heart / Still to the Mountain Nymph may offer mine."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1793, 1806

"Does Liberty with barbarous fetters bind / Her first-born hope, the freedom of the mind?"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1793

"For what is sleep, but temporary death; / Sealing up all the windows of the soul, / And binding ev'ry thought in torpid chains?"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1793

"But, most of all, [the mind is subject] to that lov'd voice, whose thrill, / Rushing impetuous through each throbbing vein, / Dilates the wond'ring mind, and frees its pow'rs / From the cold chains of icy apathy / To all the vast extremes of bliss and pain!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1794

"Each man of sense, you'll find disdain / To drag coquetry's galling chain. / 'Tis prudence, truth, good sense, my dear, / That makes the lamp of love burn clear; / These are the silken cords, that bind / The Lover's, and the Husband's mind."

— Pointon, Priscilla [AKA Priscilla Pickering] (c. 1740-1801)

Date: 1796

"Nay, if, like hers, my heart were iron-bound, / My warmth would melt the fetters to the ground"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1796

"The chains of care fall off my pensive mind, / When through the winds your spirit hails me."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1796

"Ah! fly the scene; secure that guilt can find / In brutal force no fetter for the mind!"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1797

"Fear thee, O Death!--Or hug the chains that bind / To joyless, cheerless life, her sick, reluctant mind?"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1799

"High themes the rapt concent'ring Thoughts explore, / Freed from external Pleasure's glittering chain."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)