And he that will this health deny,

Down among the dead men let him lie.

—— Dyer (published in the early part of the reign of George I.).

I am not now in fortune's power:

He that is down can fall no lower.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 877.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,

Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,

With here and there a violet bestrewn,

Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave;

And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

James Beattie (1735-1803): The Minstrel. Book ii. Stanza 17.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings

Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,

At every fall smoothing the raven down

Of darkness till it smil'd!

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 249.

Down on your knees,

And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man's love.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 5.

Weariness

Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth

Finds the down pillow hard.

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

This story will not go down.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754): Tumble-down Dick.

If I do prove her haggard,

Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,

I 'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind,

To prey at fortune.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,

Thy element's below.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 4.

The tyrant custom, most grave senators,

Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war

My thrice-driven bed of down.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are!

From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,

That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war,

Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): On the Entry of the Austrians into Naples, 1821.