Date: 1773

"Soaring though air to find the bright abode, / Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God, / We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, / And leave the rolling universe behind; / From star to star the mental optics rove, / Measure the skies, and range the realms above."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)

Date: 1779

The mind may be veiled in darkness

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"The shifts and turns, / The expedients and inventions multiform / To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms / Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,-- / To arrest the fleeting images that fill / The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, / And force them sit, till he has pencil'd off / ...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The mind may be "enlighten'd from above"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1815

The wavering motions of the mind are like "quivering light" reflected off a confined "crystal flood" in a brass cistern

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1825

Beauty, elegance and grace may "beam transcendent" from an "angel mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)