Date: 1697
"What inward Whips my tortur'd Bowels tear? / Fierce Vipers twist their Spires about my Heart, / And Bite, and Sting, and Wound with deadly smart. / With more than Atlas weight my Soul's opprest, / And raging Tempests beat along my breast: / Corroding Flames eat thro' my burning veins, / And all ...
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1708
"As if his hollow Skull had been / A Hive fill'd full of Bees within" who "To Wax and Honey turn'd his Brains; / For the long Speech he did transmit, / Was sometimes hard, and sometimes sweet"
preview | full record— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)
Date: 1728
"But thro' the Heart / Should Jealousy it's Venom once diffuse, / 'Tis then delightful Misery no more, / But Agony unmixt, incessant Rage, / Corroding every Thought, and blasting all / The Paradise of Love."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1742
"My soul is dead, my heart is stone, / A cage of birds and beasts unclean, / A den of thieves, a dire abode / Of dragons, but no house of God."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1761, 1765
"Labour and Want (unhospitable twain) / Chill not the current in Life's salient vein; / Nor damp the spirits, else of sprightly cast, / Nor check the nobler passions of the breast; / Nor blunt the fine Sensation's tender edge, / Which man's chief pride philosophers allege. / Thus some fair ...
preview | full record— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)
Date: 1773
"But was it made for nothing else beside / Passions to draw, and Reason to be Guide? / Was so much Art employ'd to drag and drive / Nothing within the Vehicle alive? / No seated Mind that claims the moving Pew, / Master of Passions, and of Reason too?"
preview | full record— Byrom, John (1692-1763)
Date: 1965
"The ripe brain rotting like a yellow nut / Hatching / Its babel of sea-lice, sandfly, and maggot."
preview | full record— Walcott, Derek (b. 1930)