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Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1711

"These active Liquors, which Admission find / Thro' the strait Paths, and leave the coarse behind, / Swift to the inmost Rooms their Passage beat, / And crowd around the Soul's Imperial Seat."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1712, 1796

"Her body delicate, wherein enshrin'd, / As in its temple, dwelt a virtuous mind."

— Ellwood, Thomas (1639-1713)

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Date: 1712

"The watchful Centinels at ev'ry Gate, / At ev'ry Passage to the Senses wait."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1712

"Can the dissecting Steel the Brain display, / And the august Apartment open lay, / Where this great Queen still chuses to reside / In Intellectual Pomp, and bright Ideal Pride? / Or can the Eye assisted by the Glass / Discern the strait, but hospitable Place, / In which ten thousand Images remai...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1712

"The ready Phantomes at her Nod advance, / And form the busie Intellectual Dance: / While her fair Scenes to vary, or supply, / She singles out fit Images, that lye / In Memory's Records, which faithful hold / Objects immense in secret Marks inroll'd, / The sleeping Forms at her Command awake, / ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1712

"She [the mind] draws ten thousand Landschapes in the Brain, / Dresses of airy Forms an endless Train, / Which all her Intellectual Scenes prepare, / Enter by turns the Stage, and disappear."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1715

"No Beams of softning Pity touch thy Breast, / Too vile a Cell to harbour such a Guest."

— Brown, Thomas (bap. 1663, d. 1704)

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Date: 1718

"For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,/ Some little Bits ask Leave to flow; / And, as thro' these Canals They roll, / Bring up a Sample of the Whole. / Like Footmen running before Coaches, / To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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Date: 1718

"The Brain contains ten thousand Cells: / In each some active Fancy dwells; / Which always is at Work, and framing / The several Follies I was naming."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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