Date: December, 1917

"I was of three minds, / Like a tree / In which there are three blackbirds."

— Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955)

Date: November, 1930

"What's in your mind, my dove, my coney; / Do thoughts grow like feathers, the dead end of life; / Is it making of love or counting of money, / Or raid on the jewels, the plans of a thief?"

— Auden, W. H. (1907-1973)

Date: 1936

"Lids closed, the eyes are watchful; the brain / carefully stalks the thought like a tiger / following the accurately-scented prey / through tangled jungle foliage."

— Edwin Rolfe (1909-1954)

Date: 1965

"The ripe brain rotting like a yellow nut / Hatching / Its babel of sea-lice, sandfly, and maggot."

— Walcott, Derek (b. 1930)

Date: 1988

"Mind in its purest play is like some bat / That beats about in caverns all alone, / Contriving by a kind of senseless wit / Not to conclude against a wall of stone."

— Wilbur, Richard (1921- )

Date: 1988

"The mind is like a bat."

— Wilbur, Richard (1921- )

Date: 1996

"The general was busy with the ant farm in his head."

— Simic, Charles (b. 1938)