Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"The charm dissolves apace, / And as the morning steals upon the night, / Melting the darkness, so their rising senses / Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle / Their clearer reason."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1653

"Thoughts are for Shadowes plac'd, / By which the lighter Fancies are more graced. / As through a dark, and watry Cloud, more bright, / The Sun breakes forth with his Resplendent Light. / Or like to Night's black Mantle, where each Star / Doth clearer seem, so lighter Fancies are."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"So much the rather thou, celestial Light, / Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers / Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence / Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1687

"This Heart of mine, now wreck'd upon despair, / Was once as free and careless as the Air; / In th' early Morning of my tender years, / E're I was sensible of Hopes and Fears, / It floated in a Sea of Mirth and Ease, / And thought the World was only made to please; / No adverse Wind had ever stop...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)

Date: 1691

"All these assurances made but weak impressions on the Princess's Spirit, she felt something at the bottom of her heart, which would not suffer her to receive the joy which such news ought to give her, and this beam of hope appeared to her like a Sun shine just before a Storm, which it seemed wil...

— Anonymous

Date: 1692

"We Truth by a Refracted ray / View, like the Sun at Ebb of day: / Whom the gross, treacherous Atmosphere / Makes where it is not, to appear."

— Norris, John (1657-1712)