Date: 54 B.C.

"[N]or gladly and with joyous breast do I send you, nor will I suffer you to bear signs of helpful fortune, but first from my breast many a complaint will I express, sullying my grey hairs with dust and ashes, and then will I hang dusky sails to the swaying mast, so that our sorrow and burning of...

— Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 - c. 54 B.C.)

Date: 1319

"Only two men of all // Are truly just--whose words the rest ignore, / For the triple sparks of envy, greed, and pride / Ignite their hearts."

— Dante, Alighieri (1265-1321)

Date: 1582

"So great a Light hath set my mind on fire, / That flesh and bone consume with secret flame"

— Watson, Thomas (1555/6-1592)

Date: 1593

"And care consumes the minde of man, / as fire melts Virgin Waxe."

— Churchyard, Thomas (1523?-1604)

Date: 1653

"My heart the fire, whose flames are ever pure, / Laid on Loves Altar last, till life endure."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1657

"Cupid denied of this did backward start, / And ran for hast to hide him in her heart, / Where he renewed fresh flames, and by delay, / So I corcht his wings he could not fly away / Thus force perforce in her my conquer'd breast / Is the poore Inne of such a God-borne guest, / Whom while I harbor...

— Bold, Henry (1627-1683)

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

"What difference is there 'twixt a man and beast, / (None sure at all, or little to be guest) / If't wan't for Reason, and an immortal spark, / Which hides it self within his hollow Ark?"

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

Date: 1679

"The Soul's God's Candle, a light of acceptation"

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1681

"In Pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of Disgrace. / A fiery Soul, which working out its way, / Fretted the Pigmy-Body to decay; / And o'r inform'd the Tenement of Clay."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)