That man may last, but never lives,

Who much receives, but nothing gives;

Whom none can love, whom none can thank,—

Creation's blot, creation's blank.

Thomas Gibbons (1720-1785): When Jesus dwelt.

Those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings,

Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts before which our mortal nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.

  Duke.  And what's her history?

  Vio.  A blank, my lord. She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,

And with a green and yellow melancholy

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 40.