Date: 1703

"Force, and the Wills of our Imperious Rulers, / May bind two Bodies in one wretched Chain; / But Minds will still look back to their own Choice. / So the poor Captive in a Foreign Realm, / Stands on the Shoar, and sends his Wishes back / To the dear Native Land from whence he came."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: November 25, 1707; 1708

"In Honour's Name remember what you are, / Break from the Bondage of this feeble Passion, / And urge your way to Glory."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: November 25, 1707; 1708

"I feel my Soul impatient of its Bondage, / Disdaining this unworthy, idle Passion, / And strugling to be free."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1714

"Well then, I own my Heart has broke your Chains. / Patient I bore the painful Bondage long, / At length my generous Love disdains your Tyranny."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1753

"He combats Passion, rooted in the Soul, / Whose Powers at once delight ye and controul; / Whose Magic Bondage each lost Slave enjoys, / Nor wishes Freedom, tho' the Spell destroys."

— Moore, Edward (1712-1757)

Date: 1779

"Banish'd--robb'd of my country, and my name; / Yet they have left a mind defies their vengeance-- / Which, though these limbs were lock'd in bolts of steel, / And darkness wrapt these precious founts of light, / Would rise superior to their bounded power, / And scorn alike their fetters, and the...

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1792

"Curs'd lethargy of the soul! ... that chain'd my better judgement, cramp'd all my strength of mind--ruin'd all my prospects."

— Tytler, Alexander Fraser (1747-1813); Schiller (1759-1805)

Date: 1792

"I should be a pitiful bungler indeed, if I knew not yet how to tear a son from the heart of his father, were they link'd together with chains of iron."

— Tytler, Alexander Fraser (1747-1813); Schiller (1759-1805)

Date: 1796, 1806

"Ambition!--not that emulative zeal Which wings the tow'ring souls of godlike men! / But bold, oppressive, self-created pow'r, / That, trampling o'er the barrier of the laws, / And scattering wide the tender shoots of pity, / Strikes at the root of reason, and confines / Nature itself in bondage!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1799

"Valour holds a woman's soul in far securer chains than Science."

— Dutton, Thomas (fl. 1770-1815); Kotzebue (1761-1819)