Date: 1709, 1810

"When I view my spacious soul, / And survey myself awhole, / And enjoy myself alone, / I'm a kingdom of my own."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1709, 1810

"I've a mighty part within / That the world hath never seen, / Rich as Eden's happy ground, / And with choicer plenty crown'd: / Here on all the shining boughs / Knowledge fair and useful grows; / On the same young flow'ry tree / All the seasons you may see; / Notions in the bloom of light, / Jus...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1709, 1810

"Here in a green and shady grove, / Streams of pleasure mix with love: / There beneath the smiling skies / Hills of contemplation rise."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1709, 1810

"Nothing can describe the soul: / 'Tis a region half unknown, / That has treasures of its own. / More remote from public view / Than the bowels of Peru; / Broader 'tis, and brighter far, / Than the golden Indies are; / Ships that trace the wat'ry stage / Cannot coast it in an age; / Harts, or hor...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1719

"My soul is like a wilderness, / Where beasts of midnight howl; / There the sad raven finds her place, / And there the screaming owl."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Yet all Persons are under some Obligation to improve their own Understanding, otherwise it will be a barren Desart, or a Forest overgrown grown with Weeds and Brambles."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Their Understandings are hereby cooped up in narrow Bounds, so that they never look abroad into other Provinces of the intellectual World, which are more beautiful perhaps and more fruitful than their own."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Oft misled / By that bland light, the young unpractis'd views / Of reason wander through a fatal road, / Far from their native aim."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Thus he learns / Their birth and fortunes; how allied they haunt / The avenues of sense; what laws direct / Their union; and what various discords rise, / Or fix'd or casual: which when his clear thought / Retains and when his faithful words express, / That living image of the external scene, / ...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)