Date: Jun 12, 1668; 1671

"'Tis so wild [Wildblood's heart], that the Lady who has it in her keeping, would be glad she were well rid on't: it does so flutter about the Cage. 'Tis a meer Bajazet; and if it be not let out the sooner, will beat out the brains against the Grates."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: Jun 12, 1668; 1671

"But is not your heart of the nature of those Birds that breed in one Countrie, and goe to winter in another?"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November 1672, 1673

"Ay, ay, when the love is once come so far, that Spiritual Mind will never leave pulling, and pulling, till it has drawn the beastly body after it."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1678

"But, like a mole in earth, busy and blind, / [the soul] Works all her folly up, and casts it outward / To the world's open view"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1682

"O play not with my Heart, as Children do / With some poor Bird, which while they love, they shew. / One over-weening grasp of life bereaves, / And in a moment all the joy deceives."

— Coppinger, Matthew (fl. 1682)

Date: 1687

The will may spur a lover on

— Ayres, Philip (1638-1712)

Date: 1696

"He that strives not to Stem his Angers Tide, / Does a Mad Horse without a Bridle ride."

— Cibber, Colley (1671-1757)

Date: 1682, 1683, 1709

"His Love's the very Bird-lime of his Brain, / And pulls some Part away with every Strain."

— Gould, Robert (b. 1660?, d. in or before 1709)

Date: 1743

"My heart and flesh cry out for God: / There would I fix my soul's abode, / As birds that in the altars nest."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1763

"My heart was lighter than a fly, / Like any bird I sung, / Till he pretended love, and I, / Believed his flattering tongue."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)