Date: 1633

"Our two soules therefore, which are one, / Though I must goe, endure not yet / A breach, but an expansion, / Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate."

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1660

"Things that the least of drossy mixture hold, / Last longest; my Hearts flames Ætherial be, / More pure than seven times refined Gold / Than Cedar's flames: rays of a Deitie / They are."

— Pordage, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. c. 1691)

Date: 1661

"GRACE though she could have with one single dart / The stubborn Will pierc'd th'row her Steely heart."

— Pordage, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. c. 1691)

Date: 1681

"Some livelier spark of heaven, and more refined / From earthly dross, fills the great poet's mind."

— Duke, Richard (1658-1711)

Date: 1689

And yet there is, there is one prize / Lock'd in an adamantine Breast; / Storm that then, Love, if thou be'st wise, / A Conquest above all the rest, / Her Heart, who binds all Hearts in chains, / Castanna's Heart untouch'd remains."

— Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)

Date: 1697

"Our Senses to the Mind while lodg'd in Clay, / Do all their various Images convey. / Things that we tast, and feel, and see, afford / The Seeds of Thought with which our Minds are stor'd."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"At such Reflections do's not Nature start, / And try at every Spring to touch your Heart? / Do's not soft Pity's fire begin to burn, / Do not your yearning Bowels in you turn? / In such a case Breasts arm'd with temper'd Steel / And Hearts of Marble, should impression feel."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Lord, strike this Marble Heart, thy powerful Stroke / Will make a Flood gush from the cleaving Rock. / O draw all Nature's Sluces up, and drain / Her Magazines, which liquid Stores contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1699

"Love then, that sweet procession of the Mind, / Was from all Dross, and Earthly Dreggs refin'd."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1703

"Those dear Delights, in which I still shall find / Ten thousand Joys to feast my Mind, / Joys, great as Sense can bear, from all its Dross refin'd."

— Chudleigh [née Lee], Mary, Lady Chudleigh (bap. 1656, d. 1710)