Date: April 1750, 1791

"O what can words, / The weak interpreters of mortal thoughts, / Or what can thoughts (tho' wild of wing they rove / Thro' the vast concave of th'aetherial round) / If to the Heav'n of Heavens they'd win their way / Advent'rous, like the birds of night they're lost, / And delug'd in the flood of ...

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"'Tis then, nor sooner, that the restless mind / Shall find itself at home; and like the ark / Fix'd on the mountain-top, shall look-aloft / O'er the vague passage of precarious life; / And, winds and waves and rocks and tempests past, / Enjoy the everlasting calm of Heav'n."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs / Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift, / The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd / Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain / To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"Yet still let reason thro' the eye of faith / View Him with fearful love; let truth pronounce, / And adoration on her bended knee / With Heav'n-directed hands confess His reign."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: November 1752, 1791

"When up the imperceptible ascent / Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose, / Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns / Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe, / And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: November 1752, 1791

"Illustrious name, irrefragable proof / Of man's vast genius, and the soaring soul!"

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: January, 1754; 1791

"Survey the magnet's sympathetic love, / That wooes the yielding needle; contemplate / Th'attractive amber's power, invisible / Ev'n to the mental eye."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: January, 1754; 1791

"[B]affled here / By his omnipotence Philosophy / Slowly her thoughts inadequate revolves, / And stands, with all his circling wonders round her, / Like heavy Saturn in th'etherial space / Begirt with an inexplicable ring."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: March 1756

"The thought-kindling light, / Thy prime production, darts upon my mind / Its vivifying beams, my heart illumines, / And fills my soul with gratitude and Thee."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: March 1756

"But not to all,--for hark! the organs blow / Their swelling notes round the cathedral's dome, / And grace th'harmonious choir, celestial feast / To pious ears, and med'cine of the mind."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)