Date: November, 1682

"Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led / From cause to cause, to Nature's secret head."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November, 1682

"In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep; / But found their line too short, the well too deep; / And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November, 1682

"Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll, / Without a centre where to fix the soul."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November, 1682

"Heav'n's early care prescrib'd for every age; / First, in the soul, and after, in the page."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November, 1682

"They, who the written rule had never known, / Were to themselves both rule and law alone: / To nature's plain indictment they shall plead; / And, by their conscience, be condemn'd or freed."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November, 1682

"Then those who follow'd reason's dictates right; Liv'd up, and lifted high their natural light; / With Socrates may see their Maker's Face, / While thousand rubric-martyrs want a place."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1682

"Disdaining those Bonds that the Predicants wear, / My Soul is a Monarch as free as the Air."

— Coppinger, Matthew (fl. 1682)

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: 1682

"O play not with my Heart, as Children do / With some poor Bird, which while they love, they shew. / One over-weening grasp of life bereaves, / And in a moment all the joy deceives."

— Coppinger, Matthew (fl. 1682)

Date: 1683

"Falsely they [sense and rhyme] seem each other to oppose; / Rhyme must be made with Reason's laws to close; / And when to conquer her you bend your force, / The mind will triumph in the noble course."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700) [Poem ascribed to]