Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's plain,

Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;

Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,

The big drops mingling with the milk he drew

Gave the sad presage of his future years,—

The child of misery, baptized in tears.

John Langhorne (1735-1779): The Country Justice. Part i.

Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,

And falls on the other.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

Oh, when a mother meets on high

The babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then for pains and fears,

The day of woe, the watchful night,

For all her sorrow, all her tears,

An over-payment of delight?

Robert Southey (1774-1843): The Curse of Kehama. Canto x. Stanza 11.

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,

Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay!

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.

The cold winds swept the mountain-height,

And pathless was the dreary wild,

And 'mid the cheerless hours of night

A mother wandered with her child:

As through the drifting snows she press'd,

The babe was sleeping on her breast.

Seba Smith (1792-1868): The Snow Storm.