Careful Words

cannon (n.)

cannon (v.)

Like feather bed betwixt a wall

And heavy brunt of cannon ball.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto ii. Line 872.

  The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we could carry cannon by our sides.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them.

 .   .   .   .

Into the jaws of death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 3.