Date: 1661

"These are but objects at a distance, these / Are but refreshments, and to give you ease, / To make thy Way the sweeter, till thou art / Hid in the Closet of Sophia's Heart."

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

Date: 1661

"On this attracting Face our Pilgrim throws / His eyes, his Soul thorow those windows goes"

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

Date: 1667

"And though 'tis true she [the soul] is imprison'd here, / Yet hath she Notions of her own, / Which Sense doth only jog, awake, and clear, / But cannot at the first make known."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667

"So unconcern'd she lives, so much above / The Rubbish of a sordid Jail, / That nothing doth her Energy improve / So much as when those structures fail."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1679

"Mourn therefore that this Cabinet of thine / Framed by Gods own hand for things divine, / And to be fill'd with Christ and Grace should be / Thus stufft with dross, and dung, and vanitie."

— Slater, Samuel (c.1629-1704)

Date: 1681

"O who shall, from this Dungeon, raise / A Soul inslav'd so many wayes?"

— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Date: 1761, 1790

"Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight / She [the mind] looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight; / Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam / From this dull earth, and seek her native home."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

Date: 1781

"What becomes of the old furniture when the new is continually introduced? In what hidden cells are these solid ideas lodged, that they may be produced again in good repair when wanted to fill the apartments of memory?"

— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)