Date: 1651

"'Tis but the Body that blind Fortunes spight / Can chain to Earth; the nobler Soul doth slight / Her servill Bonds, and takes to Heaven her flight."

— Sherburne, Sir Edward (bap. 1616, d. 1702)

Date: 1642, 1655, 1668

"My eye, which swift as thought contracts the space / That lies between, and first salutes the place / Crown'd with that sacred pile, so vast, so high, / That whether 'tis a part of Earth, or sky, / Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud / Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud, / Pauls, the...

— Denham, John, Sir (1615-1669)

Date: 1642, 1655, 1668

"Nor wonder, if (advantag'd in my flight, / By taking wing from thy auspicious height) / Through untrac't ways, and aery paths I fly, / More boundless in my Fancy than my eie."

— Denham, John, Sir (1615-1669)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move / Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird / Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid / Tunes her nocturnal note."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1681

"Here at the fountain's sliding foot, / Or at some fruit tree's mossy root, / Casting the body's vest aside, / My soul into the boughs does glide; / There like a bird it sits and sings, / Then whets, and combs its silver wings; / And, till prepar'd for longer flight, / Waves in its plumes the var...

— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Date: 1681

"And all to leave, what with his Toyl he won, / To that unfeather'd, two legg'd thing, a Son: / Got, while his Soul did hudled Notions try; / And born a shapeless Lump, like Anarchy."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1684

"My grateful Thoughts so throng to get abroad, / They over-run each other in the crowd: / To you with hasty flight they take their way, / And hardly for the dress of words will stay."

— Oldham, John (1653-1683)

Date: 1687

"This Heart of mine, now wreck'd upon despair, / Was once as free and careless as the Air; / In th' early Morning of my tender years, / E're I was sensible of Hopes and Fears, / It floated in a Sea of Mirth and Ease, / And thought the World was only made to please; / No adverse Wind had ever stop...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)

Date: 1691

The Soul's a Particle of Heavenly fire, / And boldly doth to every thing aspire: / But yet how low Her lofty Flights do fall; / When She attempts the Wonders of this Ball!"

— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)

Date: 1691

"Since then Effluviums from all Objects break, / And thrô the Air their unseen Journeys take, / To every Sense in various Measures come; / How is it that the crowding Troops find room? / Numberless Numbers to each Sense repair, / That various Motions, Forms, and Garbs do wear; / Enough to stifle ...

— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)