Date: 1773

"But soon, alas! this holy calm is broke; / My soul submits to wear her wonted yoke; / With shackled pinions strives to soar in vain, / And mingles with the dross of earth again."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1783

"The enemy fight in chains, invisible chains, but heavy; / Their minds are fetter'd; then how can they be free, / While, like the mounting flame, / We spring to battle o'er the floods of death?"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1788

"On Eloquence, prevailing art! / Whose force can chain the list'ning heart; / The throb of Sympathy inspire, / And kindle every great desire; / With magic energy controul / And reign the sov'reign of the soul!"

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"Since our most wicked act / Is not our sin, and our religious awe / Delusion, if that strong Necessity / Chains up our will."

— Crowe, William (1745-1829)

Date: 1788

"Who for such perishable gaudes would put / A yoke upon his free unbroken spirit, / And gall himself with trammels and the rubs / Of this world's business; so he might stand clear / Of judgment and the tax of idleness / In that dread audit, when his mortal hours / (Which now with soft and silent ...

— Crowe, William (1745-1829)

Date: 1789, 1794

"In every cry of every Man / In every Infants cry of fear / In every voice; in every ban / The mind-forg'd manacles I hear."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1792

"Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, / Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain."

— Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855)

Date: 1792

"More noble than the sycophant, whose art / Must heap with taudry flowers thy hated shrine; / I envy not the meed thou canst impart / To crown his service--while, tho' Pride combine / With Fraud to crush me--my unfetter'd heart / Still to the Mountain Nymph may offer mine."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1793, 1806

"Does Liberty with barbarous fetters bind / Her first-born hope, the freedom of the mind?"

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

Date: 1793

"For what is sleep, but temporary death; / Sealing up all the windows of the soul, / And binding ev'ry thought in torpid chains?"

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