Date: c. 1680

"While man unmarr'd abode, his Spirits all / In Vivid hue were active in their hall."

— Taylor, Edward (1642-1729)

Date: c. 1680

"A thousand Griefs attending on the same. / Which march in ranck and file, proceed to make / A Battery, and the fort of Life to take."

— Taylor, Edward (1642-1729)

Date: c. 1680

"Which when the Centinalls did spy, the Heart / Did beate alarum up in every part."

— Taylor, Edward (1642-1729)

Date: c. 1680

"The Vitall Spirits apprehend thereby / Exposde to danger great suburbs ly, / The which they do desert, and speedily / The Fort of Life the Heart, they Fortify, / The Heart beats up still by her Pulse to Call / Out of the outworks her train Souldiers all / Which quickly come hence."

— Taylor, Edward (1642-1729)

Date: 1682-1735

"I am this crumb of dust which is design'd / To make my Pen unto thy Praise alone, / And my dull Phancy I would gladly grinde / Unto an Edge on Zions Pretious Stone."

— Taylor, Edward (1642-1729)

Date: August 4, 1778

"Behold! the soul shall waft away, / Whene'er we come to die, / And leave its cottage made of clay, / In twinkling of an eye."

— Hammon, Jupiter (1711-c.1800)

Date: 1845

"Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, / Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before."

— Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849)

Date: December 1847

"These were days when my heart was volcanic / As the scoriac rivers that roll-- / As the lavas that restlessly roll / Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek / In the ultimate climes of the pole."

— Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849)

Date: 1855

"This is the tasteless water of souls .... this the true sustenance."

— Whitman, Walt (1819-1892)

Date: c. 1862

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- / The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -- / The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' / And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)