Date: 1797

"Thus on the golden thread that Fancy weaves / Buoyant, as Hope's illusive flattery breathes, / The young and visionary Poet leaves / Life's dull realities, while sevenfold wreaths / Of rainbow light around his head revolve."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1797

"Still shall the plaintive lyre essay its powers / To dress the cave of Care with Fancy's flowers."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1797

"May the soft rays of dawning hope impart / Reviving Patience to my fainting heart."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1797

"Check they the torpid influence of Despair, / Or bid warm Health re-animate the breast; / Where Hope's soft visions have no longer part, / And whose sad inmate--is a broken heart?"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1797

"The base controul / Of petty despots in their pedant reign / Already hast thou felt;--and high disdain / Of Tyrants is imprinted on thy soul."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1797

"Man, lost in ignorance and toil, / Becomes associate to the soil, / And his heart hardens like his native rock."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: w. September 1794, 1797

"Wit, that no suffering could impair, / Was thine, and thine whose mental powers / Of force to chase the fiends that tear / From Fancy's hands her budding flowers."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1797

"Grief, the most fatal of the heart's diseases, / Soon teaches, who it fastens on, to die."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1797

"Fear thee, O Death!--Or hug the chains that bind / To joyless, cheerless life, her sick, reluctant mind?"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)