Date: 1686, 1712
"When first my Soul put on its fleshly Load, / It was Imprison'd in the dark Abode; / My Feet were Fetters, my Hands Manacles, / My Sinews Chains, and all Confinement else; / My Bones the Bars of my loath'd Prison grate; / My Tongue the Turn-key, and my Mouth the Gate."
preview | full record— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)
Date: 1725-6
"[T]he body it self was suppos'd to be the infernal receptacle of the Soul, into which she descended as into a prison, from above; this was thought the sepulchre of the Soul, and the cave of Pluto"
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), Broome, W. and Fenton, E.
Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"And yet I wish--Oh! my friend, 'tis like drawing a curtain before my heart--only to taste this felicity, and die and expiate my crimes.--My crimes!"
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)