Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"So much the rather thou, celestial Light, / Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers / Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence / Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1687

"This Heart of mine, now wreck'd upon despair, / Was once as free and careless as the Air; / In th' early Morning of my tender years, / E're I was sensible of Hopes and Fears, / It floated in a Sea of Mirth and Ease, / And thought the World was only made to please; / No adverse Wind had ever stop...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)

Date: 1692

"We Truth by a Refracted ray / View, like the Sun at Ebb of day: / Whom the gross, treacherous Atmosphere / Makes where it is not, to appear."

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"Black Night comes on, and interrupts the Day, / E'er it can chase the Mists and Fogs away; / The Dregs of Flesh and Drossy Lees, o'errun / The Soul, and weigh the strugling Spirit down:"

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"If once right Reason drives that Cloud away, / Truth breaks upon us with resistless Day."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1712

"Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light? / She [the mind] moves unweary'd, as the active Fire, / And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)