Date: 1815

"You bid me write to amuse the tedious hours, / And save from withering my poetic powers; / Hard is the task, my friend, for verse should flow / From the free mind, not fetter'd down by woe."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1816

"Nor wide stretched lands, nor interposing deep, / Can check the progess of th’ unfetter’d soul."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1817

"On this scroll thou seest written in characters fair / A sun-beamy tale of a wreath, and a chain; / And, warrior, it nurtures the property rare / Of charming my mind from the trammels of pain."

— Keats, John (1795-1821)

Date: w. c. 1789, published 1825

"Dost thou not see,--or art thou blind with age,-- / How many Graces on her eyelids sit, / Linking those viewless chains that bind the soul, / And sharpening smooth discourse with pointed wit."

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

Date: 1842

"Regret came shivering through my veins, / And bound my tongue in iron chains; / My soul in prison seem'd to be / And ever must if torn from thee."

— Blamire, Susanna (1747-1794)