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Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"The charm dissolves apace, / And as the morning steals upon the night, / Melting the darkness, so their rising senses / Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle / Their clearer reason."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

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Date: 1653

"Thoughts are for Shadowes plac'd, / By which the lighter Fancies are more graced. / As through a dark, and watry Cloud, more bright, / The Sun breakes forth with his Resplendent Light. / Or like to Night's black Mantle, where each Star / Doth clearer seem, so lighter Fancies are."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

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Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"So much the rather thou, celestial Light, / Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers / Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence / Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

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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)

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Date: 1692

"We Truth by a Refracted ray / View, like the Sun at Ebb of day: / Whom the gross, treacherous Atmosphere / Makes where it is not, to appear."

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

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Date: 1701

"Beauty's the least prevailing Snare to me; tho' her great Soul makes me admire her Person; yet were she deform'd, Virtue, like the Sun, wou'd shine through every Cloud."

— Baker, Thomas (b. 1680-1)

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Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"Black Night comes on, and interrupts the Day, / E'er it can chase the Mists and Fogs away; / The Dregs of Flesh and Drossy Lees, o'errun / The Soul, and weigh the strugling Spirit down:"

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

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Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"If once right Reason drives that Cloud away, / Truth breaks upon us with resistless Day."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

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Date: Saturday, May 17, 1712

"Mirth is like a Flash of Lightning, that breaks thro a Gloom of Clouds, and glitters for a Moment; Chearfulness keeps up a kind of Day-light in the Mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual Serenity."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

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Date: 1712

"Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light? / She [the mind] moves unweary'd, as the active Fire, / And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.