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."
preview | full record— 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...
preview | full record— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)
Date: 1691
"What Energy doth thrô his Vitals move; / What Magick Charm doth stirr him up to Love? / When Thoughts on winged Particles advance, / When piercing Looks the Lover's mutually entrance, / And their Souls on the fiery Atoms dance?"
preview | full record— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)
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 ...
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700)
Date: 1718
"As in a Hive's vimineous Dome, / Ten thousand Bees enjoy their Home; / Each does her studious Action vary, / To go and come, to fetch and carry: / Each still renews her little Labor; / Nor justles her assiduous Neighbour."
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1735
"But if my Soul, / To this gross Clay confin'd, flutters on Earth / With less ambitious Wing; unskill'd to range / From Orb to Orb, where Newton leads the Way; / And view with piercing Eye the grand Machine, / Worlds above Worlds; subservient to his Voice, / Who, veil'd in clouded Majesty, alone ...
preview | full record— Somervile, William (1675-1742)
Date: 1743
"The noblest spirit, fighting her hard fate / In this damp, dusky region, charged with storms, / But feebly flutters, yet untaught to fly; / Or, flying, short her flight, and sure her fall."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Fierce passions, so mismeasured to this scene, / Stretch'd out, like eagles' wings, beyond our nest, / Far, far beyond the worth of all below, / For earth too large, presage a nobler flight, / And evidence our title to the skies."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Yet still, through their disgrace [the passions'], no feeble ray / Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell: / But these (like that fallen monarch [Adam] when reclaim'd) / When Reason moderates the rein aright, / Shall re-ascend, remount their former sphere, / Where once they soar'd il...
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Sense! take the rein; blind Passion! drive us on; / And, Ignorance! befriend us on our way; / Ye new, but truest patrons of our peace! Yes; give the Pulse full empire; live the Brute, / Since as the Brute we die."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)