Date: 1697

"What inward Whips my tortur'd Bowels tear? / Fierce Vipers twist their Spires about my Heart, / And Bite, and Sting, and Wound with deadly smart. / With more than Atlas weight my Soul's opprest, / And raging Tempests beat along my breast: / Corroding Flames eat thro' my burning veins, / And all ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"The Sun (when Summer-heats the Spring succeed) / Changes the tarnish'd Verdure of the Mead: / The dry'd up Rills no longer murmuring creep / O'er the smooth Pebbles, and invite to sleep, / But buzzing Insects make an uncouth Noise, / And sulph'rous Vapours thunder in the Skies. / So when the Hea...

— Cobb, Samuel (1675-1713); Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718); Quillet, Claudius (fl.1640-1656)

Date: 1712

"Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light? / She [the mind] moves unweary'd, as the active Fire, / And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1728

Strait the fierce Storm involves his Mind anew, / Flames thro' the Nerves, and boils along the Veins; / While anxious Doubt distracts the tortur'd Heart; / For even the sad Assurance of his Fears / Were Heaven to what he feels."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1785

"The effort rude to quench the cheering flame / Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze / With sullen envy, and admiring pride, / Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair / Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense, / And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

"O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing / red with the milder ray / Of soft humanity, and kindness bland: / So wide its influence, that the bright beams / Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge, / Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed, / Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total n...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)