Date: 1704

"When gentle Reason rules thy Breast; / The Sun upon the calmest Sea / Appears not half so bright as Thee."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1709 [1708]

"With Wishes rais'd, with Jealousies opprest / (Alternate Tyrants of the Human Breast) / By one great Tryal He resolves to prove / The Faith of Woman, and the Force of Love."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: w. 1718 [first published 1907]

"All this says Richard is but Nonsense / For whats the Will without the Conscience / That mighty Pow'r by whom the thought / Is from Kings Bench to Chanc'ry brought. / What Seat for Her have You assign'd / When She may view and sway the mind?"

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

The mind is like "The Pope [who] prays and sleeps at Rome, / And very seldom stirs from Home: / Yet sending forth his Holy Spies, / And having heard what They advise, / He rules the Church's blest Dominions; / And sets Men's Faith by His Opinions."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Alma, They strenuously maintain, / Sits Cock-horse on Her Throne, the Brain; / And from that Seat of Thought dispenses / Her Sov'reign Pleasure to the Senses."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1739, 1740

"Was there one joy, whose image does not last? / But that One; most extatic, most refin'd, / Reigns fresh, and will for ever in my mind, / With such a power of charms it storm'd my soul, / That nothing ever can it's strength controul."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1741

"But self-conceitedness does reign / In every mortal mind."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)