Date: 1730
"Thou golden chain 'twixt God and men, / Bless'd Reason! guide my life and pen."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1737
"Brave Souls when loos'd from this ignoble Chain / Of Clay, and sent to their own Heav'n again, / From Earth's gross Orb on Virtue's Pinions rise / In Æther wanton, and enjoy the Skies."
preview | full record— Baker, Henry (1698-1774)
Date: 1739
"To usher forth the Virtues of the Mind! / From Nature's Chain, from Earthly Dross set free, / One only Appetite remained in Thee."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1760
"O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay, / Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day, / And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, / Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1788
"When the sharp iron wounds his inmost soul, / And his strain'd eyes in burning anguish roll; / Will the parch'd negro find, ere he expire, / No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire?"
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
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."
preview | full record— Blake, William (1757-1827)