Date: 1597

"Love's heralds should be thoughts, / Which ten times faster glides than the sun's beams / Driving back shadows over louring hills."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1702

"My Heart beats higher, and my nimble Spirits / Ride swiftly thro' their purple Channels round: / 'Tis the last blaze of Life: Nature revives / Like a dim, winking Lamp, that flashes brightly / With parting Light, and strait is dark for ever."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1700, 1702

"What is the Soul of Man but Light, / Drawn down from thy transcendant height? / What but an Intellectual Beam? / A Spark of thy immortal Flame?"

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1700, 1702

"A Beam of Hope, / Strikes thro' my Soul, like the first Infant Light, / That glanc'd upon the Chaos."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1700, 1702

"And all fires those that lighted up my Soul / Glory and bright Ambition languish now, / And leave me dark and gloomy as the Grave."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: November 25, 1707; 1708

"Since the same Flame, by different Ways express'd, / Glows in the Heroe's and the Poet's Breast."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: November 25, 1707; 1708

"Oh Seofrid! do'st thou not wonder much, / And pity my weak Temper, when thou seest me / Thus in a Moment chang'd from Hot to Cold, / My active Fancy glowing now with Hopes, / Anon thus drooping; Death in my pale Visage, / My Heart, and my chill Veins, all freezing with Despair."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: November 25, 1707; 1708

"No!--'tis my Glory that the Christian Light / Has dawn'd, like Day, upon my darker Mind, / And taught my Soul the noblest use of Reason; / Taught her to soar aloft, to search, to know / The vast eternal Fountain of her Being."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1713

Thus o'er the dying Lamp th'unsteady Flame / Hang's quiv'ring on a Point, leap's off by Fits, / And fall's again, as loath to quit its Hold / --Thou must not go, my Soul still hover's o'er thee / And can't get loose."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1713

"I've been surprized in an unguarded Hour, / But must not now go back: The Love, that lay / Half smother'd in my Breast, has broke through all / Its weak Restraints, and burn's in its full Lustre, / I cannot, if I wou'd, conceal it from thee."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)