page 1 of 1     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1700, 1717

"Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

preview | full record

Date: 1728, 1729, 1736

"She form'd this image of well-bodied air, / With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head, / A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead, / And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, / But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

preview | full record

Date: 1742

"Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; / In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar / Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; / Dismounted every great and glorious aim; / Embruted every faculty divine; / Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

preview | full record

Date: 1742

"My soul is dead, my heart is stone, / A cage of birds and beasts unclean, / A den of thieves, a dire abode / Of dragons, but no house of God."

— Wesley, John and Charles

preview | full record

Date: 1792

"Nay, from the palaces the Virtues fly, / While boldly entering from their beastly stye, / The vulgar passions rush to pig with kings!

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

preview | full record

Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

"Not suffering Souls in fleshly cells to lie, / Like the stall'd ox, or glutton of the stye;"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

preview | full record

Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

"Solicit Fancy from celestial flights, / To wander o'er the World for frail delights / And crowd Imagination's rooms, immense, / With what relates alone to Time and Sense!"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

preview | full record

Date: 1815

"With my own hand I'll ope the way / From its base tenement of clay; / Tir'd of its suff'rings here below, / I'll loose it from this scene of woe; / I'll prune its wings and let it fly, / To seek again its native sky."

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)

preview | full record

Date: 1818

"Great Muse, thou know'st what prison, / Of flesh and bone, curbs, and confines, and frets / Our spirit's wings."

— Keats, John (1795-1821)

preview | full record

Date: 1868

"A sinner's heart by lust possess'd, / Of birds unclean the loathsome nest, / Of fiends the dark abode; / A stinking sepulchre it lies, / While the poor wretch with horror flies / The sight of man and God."

— Wesley, John and Charles

preview | full record

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.