Date: 1681

"This [sadness] fetters all our Senses, pulleth down / Heav'ns Image, Reason from her rightful Throne / And in her room, by Fancies pow'rful Charm, / Sets up a feigned Ill to work our Harm."

— Chamberlayne, Sir James (c.1640-1699)

Date: 1682

"Each step you take, hales me a step more near / To the cold Grave: (nor is't an idle Fear) / For know, my Soul to you is chained fast, / And if you make such cruel, fatal hast, / Must quit it's Seat, and be so far unkind, / To leave my fainting, breathless Trunk behind."

— Ephelia (fl. 1679-1682)

Date: 1703

"Weary'd at last, curst Hymen's Aid I chose; / But find the fetter'd Soul has no Repose."

— Egerton [née Fyge; other married name Field], Sarah (1670-1723)

Date: 1720

"You'll weep, I know you will; no Iron Chains / Confine thy Heart, thy Breast no Oak retains."

— Dart, John (d. 1730); Tibullus (c. 54-19 B.C.)

Date: 1760

"There is a certain pleasing force that binds, / Faster than chains do slaves, two willing minds."

— Hamilton, William, of Bangour (1704-1754)

Date: w. 1789, 1804

"Can Mammon's votaries vainly hope to bind, / In shining shackles, his immortal Mind?"

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

Date: 1794

"And as these irritative ideas make up a part of the chain of our waking thoughts, introducing other ideas that engage our attention, though themselves are unattended to, we find it very difficult to investigate by what steps many of our hourly trains of ideas gain their admittance."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1814

"Give me to send the laughing bowl around, / My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound."

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: December 14, 2009

"That'll keep them brain-chained to their trees."

— Wright, Franz (b.1953)