Definition of "suspense"

For thee the Fates, severely kind, ordain / A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain; / Thy life a long dead calm of fix'd repose; / No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.

1717, Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, lines 249–252; republished in The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902, page 113

Ten days the prophet in suspense remain'd.

1636 (date written), John Denham, “The Destruction of Troy, an Essay upon the Second Book of Virgils Æneis”, in Poems and Translations, with The Sophy, 4th edition, London: […] [John Macock] for H[enry] Herringman […], published 1668

I believe that, to the young, suspense is the most intolerable suffering. Active misery always brings with it its own power of endurance.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], pages 265–266

[The great light of day] suspens in heav'n.

1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

Expectation held his look suspense.

1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,