Date: 1765
"Thy way, by grace so well begun, / I shall have farther strength to run / Until I reach the goal; / When, Jesus, from this low degree, / And bondage of mortality, / Thou hast enlarged my soul."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: 1765
"Lord, from this despondence rousing, / For the glory of thy name, / And my righteous cause espousing, / Bring my soul from bonds and shame."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: 1766
Earthly pleasures are "Not meant by heav'n to perish unenjoy'd, / Or pass'd with scorn by superstitious pride; / Nor, grov'ling here, the brutal soul to chain, / Where happiness is still alloy'd with pain; / But there the soaring intellect to fix, / Where pain or sorrow ne'er with transport mix."
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Date: 1767
"Yet, to the stoic apathy estrang'd, / Thou canst, with steady courage, probe to th' quick / The wound thou mean'st to cure; thou canst reprove / With all the sweet persuasion of esteem: / And give a momentary pang, to free / The worthy mind from its ignoble chain."
preview | full record— Dodd, William (1729-1777)
Date: w. prior to April 1770; 1785, 1837, 1875
"Not yet contented with his boundless sway, / Which all perforce must outwardly obey, / He thought to throw his chain upon the mind; / Nor would he leave conjecture unconfined."
preview | full record— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)
Date: 1777
"Is there no Senator, whose soul disdains / To bear about his mind the golden chains / Of base Corruption?"
preview | full record— Combe, William (1742 -1823)
Date: 1777
"Not like a cloyster'd drone, to read and doze, / In undeserving, undeserv'd repose; / But reason's influence to diffuse; to clear / The enlighten'd world of every gloomy fear; / Dispel the mists of error, and unbind / Those pedant chains that clog the freeborn mind."
preview | full record— Lyttleton, George, 1st Baron Lyttleton (1709-1773)
Date: 1777, 1810
"Here soars the poet, all, impassioned mind, / And leaves his earthly clog behind."
preview | full record— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)
Date: November 9, 1779
"Thus, conscience freed from ev'ry clog, / Mahometans eat up the hog."
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1781
"My head and ears confus'd, I find / One cannot here relax the Mind, / In vain she strives to slip her chains, / Law, Law, through all these regions reigns; / So back to Chambers I return, / More Patience, and more Law, to learn."
preview | full record— Keate, George (1729-1797)