Let dogs delight to bark and bite,

For God hath made them so;

Let bears and lions growl and fight,

For 't is their nature too.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Divine Songs. Song xvi.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York,

And all the clouds that loured upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,—

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 1.

The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 6.

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,

Pursue the triumph and partake the gale?

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 385.

But there are wanderers o'er Eternity

Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 70.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark.

John Milton (1608-1674): Lycidas. Line 100.

My boat is on the shore,

And my bark is on the sea;

But before I go, Tom Moore,

Here's a double health to thee!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: To Thomas Moore.

His bark is worse than his bite.

George Herbert (1593-1632): Jacula Prudentum.

I am Sir Oracle,

And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

Thus I steer my bark, and sail

On even keel, with gentle gale.

Matthew Green (1696-1737): The Spleen.

All things that are,

Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.

How like a younker or a prodigal

The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,

Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind!

How like the prodigal doth she return,

With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,

Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 6.

I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me;

If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.

William Ellery Channing (1817-1901): A Poet's Hope.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark

Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;

'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 123.