Date: 1693

"For should I let these Thoughts but rove / They'd fix upon Tyrannick Love."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1693

Thoughts may "transcend all the Bounds of Air, / And like a blazing Comet ... inflame my Sphere."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1693

"Learn Wretches; learn the Motions of the Mind: / Why you were made, for what you were design'd; / And the great Moral End of Humane Kind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"None, none descends into himself; to find / The secret Imperfections of his Mind: / But ev'ry one is Eagle-ey'd, to see / Another's Faults, and his Deformity."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1695

Active spirits fly "To the round Palace of th' Immortal Soul, / And thro' the Rooms and dark Apartments roll."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697, 1700

"Nor think thy force too small, too weak thy Mind / Because to Clay unequally confined; / Its Power is wondrous Great; how small a Mass / Of Gold or Gems, exceeds vast Heaps of Brass?"

— Manilius, Marcus (fl. 1st Century AD), Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)

Date: 1700, 1717

"Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: w. 1677, 1702

"Vain wandring Thoughts, that crowd within my Breast / Do oft obstruct my Soul from Solid Rest; / like to vagrant Clouds, obscure the Mind / Which should to serious watching be inclin'd."

— Mollineux [née Southworth], Mary (1651-1695)

Date: 1709

"How soft the first ideas prove, / Which wander through our minds!"

— Finch [née], Anne, countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

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)