Date: 1803

"And all the floating thoughts we find / Upon the surface of the mind."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1810

"Hence are his senses to his reason subject."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1815

The mind may be indicated by looks

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1815

The wavering motions of the mind are like "quivering light" reflected off a confined "crystal flood" in a brass cistern

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1815

"You bid me write to amuse the tedious hours, / And save from withering my poetic powers; / Hard is the task, my friend, for verse should flow / From the free mind, not fetter'd down by woe."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1825

Beauty, elegance and grace may "beam transcendent" from an "angel mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1825

"Vulgar passions--meteors of a day"--"expire before the chilling blasts of age"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)