Date: 1796
"The effect [of wit on the mind] is strong,--because it's odd, / Like fire electric from a clod; / Or when fix'd air puts out a light, / Tho' vital makes it blaze more bright."
preview | full record— Courtenay, John Lees (1775?-1794)
Date: 1797
"Mortified, exasperated by her conduct, I begun to suspect that some other emotion than resentment occasioned this disdain; and last of all jealousy--jealousy came to crown my misery--to light up all my passions into madness!"
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1806
"Tho' party-zeal inflam'd his iron heart, / And prejudice sharp pointed ev'ry dart; / With glowing thoughts, his mind profusely teem'd."
preview | full record— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)
Date: 1806
"Thy pure flame / Would light the sense opake, and warm the spring / Of boundless ecstacy; while nature's laws / So violated, plead, immortal-tongu'd, / For her dark-fated children; lead them forth / From bondage infamous!"
preview | full record— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)
Date: August 31, 1837
"But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame."
preview | full record— Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)
Date: 1922
"I plucked my soul out of its secret place, / And held it to the mirror of my eye, / To see it like a star against the sky, / A twitching body quivering in space, / A spark of passion shining on my face."
preview | full record— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)
Date: September, 1934
"This weight of knowledge dark on the brain is never / To be burnt out like fever, // But will slowly, with speech to tell the way and ease it, / Will sink into the blood, and warm, and slowly / Move in the veins, and murmur, and come at length / To the tongue's tip and the finger's tip most lowl...
preview | full record— Miles, Josephine (1911-1985)
Date: w. 1936, 1938
"The year plunges into night / and the heart plunges / lower than night // to an empty, windswept place / without sun, stars or moon / but a peculiar light as of thought // that spins a dark fire-- / whirling upon itself until, / in the cold, it kindles // to make a man aware of nothing / that he...
preview | full record— Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963)
Date: February 1, 2010
"Burn the body down / And, with it, out goes the pilot / Blue light of the mind."
preview | full record— Cruz, Cynthia