Date: 1796, 1806

"O! blessings on thee!--soft, this ray of hope / Dazzles my aching senses, and I start / As from a dream of horror, where the brain, / Stampt with the semblance of some phantom dire / Reflects it, waking, to the fearful gaze!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1796

"There lux'ry spreads profusion wide, / To glut the iron breast of pride!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1796, 1806

"Ambition!--not that emulative zeal Which wings the tow'ring souls of godlike men! / But bold, oppressive, self-created pow'r, / That, trampling o'er the barrier of the laws, / And scattering wide the tender shoots of pity, / Strikes at the root of reason, and confines / Nature itself in bondage!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1799, 1806

"O Gold! thou pois'nous dross, whose subtile pow'r / Can change men's souls, or captive take the will."

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1799, 1806

Gold "tipp'st the leaves of fancy's fairest flow'r / With glitt'ring drops: it feels the numbing spell / Creep through each fibre slow; while ev'ry ill / Of sordid mis'ry blossoms to devour"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1800, 1806

"He is young, / And yet the stamp of thought so tempers youth, / That all its fires are faded"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1800,1806

"Thrice he rose, and thrice / His feet recoil'd; and still the livid flame / Lengthen'd and quiver'd as the moaning wind / Pass'd thro' the rushy crevice, while his heart / Beat, like the death-watch, in his shudd'ring breast."

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1806

"On a shelf, / (Yclept a mantle-piece) a phial stands, / Half fill'd with potent spirits!--haunt the poet's restless brain, / And fill his mind with fancies whimsical."

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1806

The fancy may be sick (and borne on a grey goose wing to immortal fame)

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1791, 1806

"As Reason, fairest daughter of the skies, / Explor'd the vale, where mortal mis'ry lies; / Led on by fortitude, with eye serene, / She mark'd each object of the varying scene."

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)