Date: 1755, 1771
"For this, fair hope leads on the' impassion'd soul / Through life's wild labyrinths to her distant goal; / Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame, / The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame, / Or fondly gives reflection's cooler eye / A glance, an image, of a future sky."
preview | full record— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)
Date: January 1, 1779
"There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart."
preview | full record— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)
Date: 1781, 1791
"Hence rash Belief! may thy wild thoughts again / Ne'er thro the cells of busy fancy rove!"
preview | full record— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)
Date: 1809, 1812
"Or through some fairy palace fancy roves, / And studs, with ruby lamps, the fretted roof / Or paints with every colour of the bow / Spotless parterres, all freakt with snow-white flowers, / Flowers that no archetype in nature own."
preview | full record— Graham, James (1765-1811)
Date: 1814, 1816, 1896
"Solicit Fancy from celestial flights, / To wander o'er the World for frail delights / And crowd Imagination's rooms, immense, / With what relates alone to Time and Sense!"
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Date: 1814, 1816, 1896
"That none might Momus' wish'd-for window need, / Instinct's heav'n-taught the secret Soul to read-- / In tone, and turn, of human voice, to note, / How passions operate, and feelings float."
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Date: 1984
"At any given time, I'm aware that my mind and imagination are setting towards a particular compass point, that the whole edifice is preparing itself to lean in one way, like a great ramshackle barn."
preview | full record— Ballard, J. G. (1930-2009)
Date: August, 22, 2015
"Some philosophers claim that we know nothing of the external world outside our minds--nothing compared to what sways in our minds, in the long, twisting corridors of memory, the vast mental rooms with half-open doors, the ghosts chattering beneath the chandeliers of imagination."
preview | full record— Lightman, Alan (b. 1948)