Date: 1697, 1700
"Nor think thy force too small, too weak thy Mind / Because to Clay unequally confined; / Its Power is wondrous Great; how small a Mass / Of Gold or Gems, exceeds vast Heaps of Brass?"
preview | full record— Manilius, Marcus (fl. 1st Century AD), Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)
Date: 1733-4
"Self-Love but serves the virtuous Mind to wake, / As the small Pebble stirs the peaceful Lake, / The Centre mov'd, a Circle strait succeeds, / Another still, and still another spreads."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: 1744, 1772, 1795
"Passion's fierce illapse / Rouzes the mind's whole fabric; with supplies / Of daily impulse keeps the elastic powers / Intensely poiz'd, and polishes anew / By that collision all the fine machine: / Else rust would rise, and foulness, by degrees / Incumbering, choak at last what heaven design'd ...
preview | full record— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)
Date: 1758
"Check not the flow of sweet fraternal love, / By Heav'n's high King in bounty giv'n, / Thy stubborn heart to soften and improve, / Thy earth-clad spirit to refine, / And gradual raise to love divine, / And wing its soaring flight to Heav'n!"
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)
Date: 1760
"O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay, / Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day, / And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, / Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1762
"Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Lif...
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: January 1, 1779
"There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart."
preview | full record— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)