Date: 1742
"My soul is dead, my heart is stone, / A cage of birds and beasts unclean, / A den of thieves, a dire abode / Of dragons, but no house of God."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1744
"By toys entangled, or in guilt bemired, / [Ambition] turns a curse; it is our chain and scourge / In this dark dungeon, where confined we lie, / Close-grated by the sordid bars of sense; / All prospect of eternity shut out; / And, but for execution, ne'er set free."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1745
"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1762-3
"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1767, 1784
"Shall we, because we strive in vain to tell / How Matter acts on incorporeal Mind, / Or how, when sleep has lock'd up ev'ry sense, / Or fevers rage, Imagination paints / Unreal scenes, reject what sober sense, / And calmest thought attest?"
preview | full record— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)
Date: 1773
"Sincere Devotion needs no outward shrine: / The Centre of an humble Soul is Thine."
preview | full record— Byrom, John (1692-1763)
Date: 1785
"Oft as I trod my native wilds alone, / Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die; / The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped / By liberal converse, rude ideas strove / Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died."
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1785-7, 1791, 1792
"Thus a large dumpling to its cell confin'd / (A very apt allusion to my mind)."
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1810
"And yet, my heart, within thy silent cell / Dwells a fair image which is lovelier still."
preview | full record— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)