Date: 1686, 1712

"O! that some usual Labour were injoyn'd, / And not the Tyrant Vice enslav'd my mind! / No weight of Chains cou'd grieve my captive Hands, / Like the loath'd Drudg'ry of its base Commands."

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1700

"They cannot, no; each sigh Love's flight sustains, / O'er my own Heart in my own Breast he Reigns, / And holds too strong, my strugling Soul in Chains."

— Hopkins, John (b. 1675)

Date: w. before 1717? (first published 1989)

"But he who servily can wish or grieve / For that which is not in his powr to give / Casts off the firmness wch shoud make him great / the strongest shield we can oppose to fate / letts inclinations grow & thus he weaves / Those very bonds which keep us passions slaves."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Date: 1761

"I have been a slave to a hopeless passion too long; I am now resolved to struggle with my chains: you, Madam, must assist me in breaking them intirely; and I make no doubt but that time, joined to my own efforts, and aided by your sweetness of disposition, your tenderness, and admirable sense, w...

— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)

Date: w. 1764, published 1820

"Yet, why repine? What, though by bonds confined, / Should bonds enslave the vigour of the mind?"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"Far beyond the bonds of meaning / Fancy flies, a Fairy queen!"

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

Date: 1792

"Love sits triumphant on the heart--his throne! / And breaks those fetters bigots would impose, / To aggravate the sense of human woes!"

— Morton, Thomas (1764-1838)