It was the calm and silent night!

Seven hundred years and fifty-three

Had Rome been growing up to might,

And now was queen of land and sea.

No sound was heard of clashing wars,

Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;

Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars

Held undisturbed their ancient reign

In the solemn midnight,

Centuries ago.

Alfred Domett (1811-1887): Christmas Hymn.

The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled.

John Keats (1795-1821): Hyperion. Book ii.

No season now for calm familiar talk.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 169.

Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove

The pangs of guilty power and hapless love!

Rest here, distressed by poverty no more;

Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;

Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine,

Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Epitaph on Claudius Philips, the Musician.

Thy steady temper, Portius,

Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Caesar,

In the calm lights of mild philosophy.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Cato. Act i. Sc. 1.

Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit, rest thee now!

John Keble (1792-1866): Siege of Valencia. Scene ix.

Calm on the listening ear of night

Come Heaven's melodious strains,

Where wild Judea stretches far

Her silver-mantled plains.

Edmund H Sears (1810-1876): Christmas Song.

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will;

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Earth has not anything to show more fair.

A word in season spoken

May calm the troubled breast.

Charles Jefferys (1807-1865): A Word in Season.

On parent knees, a naked new-born child,

Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled;

So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,

Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.

Sir William Jones (1746-1794): From the Persian.

Large elements in order brought,

And tracts of calm from tempest made,

And world-wide fluctuation sway'd,

In vassal tides that follow'd thought.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. cxii. Stanza 4.