Date: 1709, 1810

"Nothing can describe the soul: / 'Tis a region half unknown, / That has treasures of its own. / More remote from public view / Than the bowels of Peru; / Broader 'tis, and brighter far, / Than the golden Indies are; / Ships that trace the wat'ry stage / Cannot coast it in an age; / Harts, or hor...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1711

"The scorcht and pathless Desarts of the Brain, / Want proper Caves and Cells to entertain / A Crowd of airy Forms and long Ideal Train."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Which by her secret uncontested Nod / Her Messengers the Spirits sends abroad, / Thro' ev'ry nervous Pass, and ev'ry vital Road. / To fetch from ev'ry distant Part a Train, / Of outward Objects to enrich the Brain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"How Spirits, which for Sense and Motion serve, / Unguided find the perforated Nerve. / Thro' ev'ry dark Recess pursue their Flight, / Unconscious of the Road and void of Sight, / Yet certain of the End still guide their Motions right."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1744

"In the coarse drudgeries and sinks of Sense, / Your souls have quite worn out the make of Heaven, / By vice new-cast, and creatures of your own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Oft misled / By that bland light, the young unpractis'd views / Of reason wander through a fatal road, / Far from their native aim."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1746, 1753

"Fear is elusive sorrow, shunning pain; / Active--yet, stop'd--it dims the doubtful brain; / Spirit snatch'd inward, stagnating, by dread, / Slow, thro' the limbs, crawls cold, the living lead: / Form'd to the look, that moulds th' assumer's face, / His joints catch tremblings--life's moist strin...

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1762

"If by the Day's illusive Scenes misled, / My erring Soul from Virtue’s Path has stray'd; / Snar'd by example, or by Passion warm'd, / Some false Delight my giddy Sense has charm'd, / My calmer Thoughts the wretched Choice reprove, / And my best Hopes are center'd in thy Love."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1785

"Yon starry orbs, / Majestic ocean, flowery vales, gay groves, / Eye-wasting lawns, and heaven-attempting hills / Which bound th' horizon, and which curb the view; / All those, with beauteous imagery, awaked / My ravished soul to ecstasy untaught, / To all the transport the rapt sense can bear; /...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)