Date: 1733-4
"Self-Love but serves the virtuous Mind to wake, / As the small Pebble stirs the peaceful Lake, / The Centre mov'd, a Circle strait succeeds, / Another still, and still another spreads."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: 1734
"I'm in a raging storm, / Where seas and skies are blended, while my soul / Like some light worthless chip of floating cork / Is tost from wave to wave."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1735, 1745
"Mean while, What think'st thou? Was the human Soul, / Which by a transient Glance from Pole to Pole / Travels more swift than Light, to Heav'n sublime / Can fly, descend to Hell, six fleeting Time, / The Past and Future to the Present join, / And knows no Bounds which can Its Range confine,...
preview | full record— Trapp, Joseph (1679-1747)
Date: 1735
"But if my Soul, / To this gross Clay confin'd, flutters on Earth / With less ambitious Wing; unskill'd to range / From Orb to Orb, where Newton leads the Way; / And view with piercing Eye the grand Machine, / Worlds above Worlds; subservient to his Voice, / Who, veil'd in clouded Majesty, alone ...
preview | full record— Somervile, William (1675-1742)
Date: 1735, 1763
"Far as th' Almighty stretch'd his utmost line, / He pierc'd in thought, and view'd the vast design."
preview | full record— Melmoth, William, the younger (bap. 1710, d. 1799)
Date: 1735, 1763
"'Midst foreign objects not employ'd to roam, / Thought, sadly active, still corrodes at home."
preview | full record— Melmoth, William, the younger (bap. 1710, d. 1799)
Date: 1735-6
"His mental eye first launch'd into the deeps of boundless ether; where unnumber'd orbs, / Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky / Unerring roll, and wind their steady way."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1735
"God gave us Reason ... A faithful guide to comfort and to save, / Till the mind floats, like Peter on the wave."
preview | full record— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)
Date: 1737
"As Years advance, th'abated Soul in most / Sinks to low Ebb, in second Childhood lost; / And feeble Age, dishonouring our Kind, / Robs all the Treasures of the wasted Mind"
preview | full record— Hughes, Jabez (1685-1731)
Date: 1727, 1739
"My Heart, no Stranger to the Guest [Love], / Flutter'd, and labour'd in my Breast"
preview | full record— Broome, William (1689-1745); Hesiod