Date: 54 B.C.

"And summon homewards the mistress, eager for her new husband, firm-prisoning her soul in love; as tight-clasping ivy, wandering here and there, wraps the tree around."

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

Date: 54 B.C.

"Ah, woeful one, with sorrows unending distraught, Erycina sows thorny cares deep in your bosom, since that time when Theseus fierce in his vigor set out from the curved bay of Piraeus, and gained the Gortynian roofs of the iniquitous ruler."

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

Date: 25 B.C.

"But, Venus, my devoted heart is ever at your service [your slave]. / Have mercy. Why in rancour burn the harvest that is yours?"

— Tibullus, Abius (c. 54-19 B.C.)

Date: 3rd Century

"The black color of Ethiopia, my homeland, became my lot when it was engendered by the fiery rays of the sun. But my soul, full of white blossoms, won the favor of my understanding master; for beauty is inferior to the nobility of the soul shrouded by my black body."

— Anonymous

Date: 1610

Man may keep himself "empaled" to keep animals out

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Fruits of more pleasing savour, from thy seed / Sown with contrition in his heart, than those / Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees / Paradise could have produced."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"So from the root / Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves / More aerie, last the bright consummate floure / Spirits odorous breathes: flours and thir fruit / Mans nourishment, by gradual scale sublim'd / To vital Spirits aspire, to animal, / To intellectual, give both life and s...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1684

"Nor were these Fruits in a rough Soil bestown / As Gemms are thick'st in rugged Quarries sown."

— Oldham, John (1653-1683)

Date: w. 1687 [published 1907]

"Yet potent Nature frankly has bestow'd / Such various gifts amongst the mingl'd Crowd, */ That I believe, the dullest of the kind, / Wou'd he but Husband and Manure his Mind,* / Might find some Exce'llence there, which well-improv'd / At home might make him Pleas'd, in public Lov'd."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1687

"At this enrag'd, the injur'd Deity / Chose out the best of his Artillery, / And in a blooming Virgin's Dove-like Eyes / He planted his Victorious Batteries; / (Phillis her Name, the best of Woman-kind, / Could Love have gain'd the Empire of her Mind) / These shot so furiously against my Heart, /...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)