A fiery soul, which, working out its way,

Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,

And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.

A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high

He sought the storms.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 156.

Then with no throbs of fiery pain,

No cold gradations of decay,

Death broke at once the vital chain,

And freed his soul the nearest way.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 9.

Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

The ruins of himself! now worn away

With age, yet still majestic in decay.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 271.

An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,

And glides in modest innocence away.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 293.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here we will sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

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

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,—

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,

When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 51.