page 1 of 2     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1693

"But why must those be thought to scape, that feel / Those Rods of Scorpions, and those Whips of Steel / Which Conscience shakes, when she with Rage controuls, / And spreads Amazing Terrors through their Souls?"

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

preview | full record

Date: 1697

"What inward Whips my tortur'd Bowels tear? / Fierce Vipers twist their Spires about my Heart, / And Bite, and Sting, and Wound with deadly smart. / With more than Atlas weight my Soul's opprest, / And raging Tempests beat along my breast: / Corroding Flames eat thro' my burning veins, / And all ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

preview | full record

Date: 1708

"As if his hollow Skull had been / A Hive fill'd full of Bees within" who "To Wax and Honey turn'd his Brains; / For the long Speech he did transmit, / Was sometimes hard, and sometimes sweet"

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

preview | full record

Date: 1718

"And yet, slap dash, is All again / In every Sinew, Nerve, and Vein. / [the mind] Runs here and there, like Hamlet's Ghost; / While every where She rules the roast."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

preview | full record

Date: 1721

"Our Soul, as from a broken Snare / A Bird escapes, is fled."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

preview | full record

Date: 1734

"Hail, holy souls, no more confin'd / To limbs and bones that clog the mind; / Ye have escap'd the snares, and left the chains behind."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

preview | full record

Date: 1742

"Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; / In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar / Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; / Dismounted every great and glorious aim; / Embruted every faculty divine; / Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

preview | full record

Date: 1742

"But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, / Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is found. / As from the wing no scar the sky retains, / The parted wave no furrow from the keel, / So dies in human hearts the thought of death."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

preview | full record

Date: 1742

"My soul is dead, my heart is stone, / A cage of birds and beasts unclean, / A den of thieves, a dire abode / Of dragons, but no house of God."

— Wesley, John and Charles

preview | full record

Date: 1744

"Yet still, through their disgrace [the passions'], no feeble ray / Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell: / But these (like that fallen monarch [Adam] when reclaim'd) / When Reason moderates the rein aright, / Shall re-ascend, remount their former sphere, / Where once they soar'd il...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

preview | full record

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.