Date: 1633

"Our two soules therefore, which are one, / Though I must goe, endure not yet / A breach, but an expansion, / Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate."

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1651

"And as the Grindstone to unpolish'd Steel / Gives Edge, and Lustre: so my Mind, I feel / VVhetted, and glaz'd by Fortunes turning VVheel"

— Sherburne, Sir Edward (bap. 1616, d. 1702)

Date: 1657

"Meanwhile, beseech'd her drink that most renownd / Choyce Cordiall sent, th' Worlds onely Soveraign; / 'Twould mint new Spirits, steel both Heart and Brain / For th' crown'd Exploit at hand"

— Harington, John (1627-1700)

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

"GRACE though she could have with one single dart / The stubborn Will pierc'd th'row her Steely heart."

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

Date: 1664

"Their Hearts are as hard, as Iron too, / As tough, but not so cold."

— Bold, Henry (1627-1683)

Date: 1667

"Nor could they trouble us, but that our mind / Hath its own glory unto dross confin'd."

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

Date: 1667

"So Age and Death by slow approches come, / And by that just inevitable doom / By which the Soul (her cloggy dross once gone) / Puts on Perfection, and resumes her own."

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

Date: 1679

God "can wash off the soil [from the soul], refine the Ore, / And make it shine fairer than heretofore."

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1679

"It is attracting Love, its nature's such, / 'Tis like the Loadstone; hadst thou once a touch, / 'Twould make thy Iron-heart with speed to move, / Nay, cleave to him in bonds of purest Love."

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)