Date: 1697

"Our Senses to the Mind while lodg'd in Clay, / Do all their various Images convey. / Things that we tast, and feel, and see, afford / The Seeds of Thought with which our Minds are stor'd."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Oh, let no groundless Prejudice oppose / The Light, that from so pure a Fountain flows. / May these kind Beams dispel the Clouds, and find / An unobstructed Passage to your Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"A lawless Rout of Passions still engage / In Nature's Cause with hideous Noise and Rage. / Reason is in the Tumult quite supprest, / And still the safest side we think the best."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Then climbs the Mind to the first glorious Cause, / And his bright Image by this Model draws. / Freedom of Choice, pure Intellectual Light, / Power Independent, Goodness Infinite, / To form the great Idea we unite."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"At such Reflections do's not Nature start, / And try at every Spring to touch your Heart? / Do's not soft Pity's fire begin to burn, / Do not your yearning Bowels in you turn? / In such a case Breasts arm'd with temper'd Steel / And Hearts of Marble, should impression feel."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Th'impetuous Stress of Passion bears me down, / And the high tyde dos sinking Reason drown."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Let Love's strong Flame by its Celestial Art / To fill my Eyes, dissolve and melt my Heart; / As Central Fire advances watry Steams / Which from the Mountains spring in Crystal Streams."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Lord, strike this Marble Heart, thy powerful Stroke / Will make a Flood gush from the cleaving Rock. / O draw all Nature's Sluces up, and drain / Her Magazines, which liquid Stores contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Prodigious was the Compass of his Mind, / Wide as his Love, which took in Humane Kind. / He Albion's Good, not Fame or Riches fought, / Generous, and open-hearted to a fault. / An unexhausted Magazin his Brain / Did all the Treasures of the Schools contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1704

"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)