Date: 1682, 1683, 1709

"His Love's the very Bird-lime of his Brain, / And pulls some Part away with every Strain."

— Gould, Robert (b. 1660?, d. in or before 1709)

Date: 1719-1720, 1725

"A most susceptible and tender Heart? -- Yes, you may feel it throb, it beats against my Breast, like an imprison'd Bird, and fain would burst it's Cage! to fly to you, the Aim of all its Wishes!"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1719-1720, 1725

"Nor was he less dissolv'd in Rapture, both their Souls seem'd to take Wing together, and left their Bodies motionless, as unworthy to bear a Part in their more elevated Bliss."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1723

Her Muse may "And with thy Spells driv'st Griefs away,
Which else wou'd make my Heart their Prey"

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1743

"My heart and flesh cry out for God: / There would I fix my soul's abode, / As birds that in the altars nest."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1763

"My heart was lighter than a fly, / Like any bird I sung, / Till he pretended love, and I, / Believed his flattering tongue."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: 1767

"Man in this world, Sir, may be compared to a hackney-coach upon a stand; continually subject to be drawn by his unruly appetites, on one foolish jaunt or another; but you will say, if his appetites are horses, which as it were drag him along, reason is the coachman to rule those horses--But, Sir...

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: 1773

"Know, lovely virgin, thy deluding art / Hath lodg'd a thousand scorpions in my breast:"

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1778

The heart like a bird to its nestling will fly, / And when by the weight of a parent its bending, / Yet wishes while constant to break and to die. / Like a bird in a snare, of its freedom bereft, / Still hoping and wishing releasement again, / 'Till clos'd in the cage the flutterer is left / To p...

— Robertson, James (fl.1768-1788)

Date: w. 1789, 1804

"While Vanity unveils her whiffling flags, / Her glittering trinkets, and her tawdry rags-- / Spreads spangled nets, and fills her philter'd bowl, / To fix each Sense, and fascinate the Soul-- / Her birdlime twigs contrived with such sly Art, / That while they tangle thoughts, they trap the heart...

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)