Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

James Shirley (1596-1666): Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. Sc. 3.

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Cymbeline. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd

As home his footsteps he hath turn'd

From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well!

For him no minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,—

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.

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.

The good die first,

And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust

Burn to the socket.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Excursion. Book i.

The day shall come, that great avenging day

Which Troy's proud glories in the dust shall lay,

When Priam's powers and Priam's self shall fall,

And one prodigious ruin swallow all.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book iv. Line 196.

But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Manfred. Act i. Sc. 2.

How lov'd, how honour'd once avails thee not,

To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee:

'T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 71.

The good die first,

And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust

Burn to the socket.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Excursion. Book i.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state:

An hour may lay it in the dust.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 84.

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,

And pavement stars,—as stars to thee appear

Seen in the galaxy, that milky way

Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest

Powder'd with stars.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 577.

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet!

Nothing comes to thee new or strange.

Sleep full of rest from head to feet;

Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): To J. S.

Great contest follows, and much learned dust.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 161.

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Cymbeline. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just!

Shining nowhere but in the dark;

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

Henry Vaughan (1621-1695): They are all gone.

Turning, for them who pass, the common dust

Of servile opportunity to gold.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Desultory Stanza.

Even such is time, that takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust;

Who in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wandered all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days.

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,

My God shall raise me up, I trust!

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Written the night before his death.—Found in his Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster.

Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 333.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 11.

The sweet remembrance of the just

Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.

Tate And Brady: Psalm cxii. 6.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When Duty whispers low, Thou must,

The youth replies, I can!

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Voluntaries.

And give to dust that is a little gilt

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Troilus and Cressida. Act iii. Sc. 3.

The knight's bones are dust,

And his good sword rust;

His soul is with the saints, I trust.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Knight's Tomb.

Even such is time, that takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust;

Who in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wandered all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days.

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,

My God shall raise me up, I trust!

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Written the night before his death.—Found in his Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster.

Life is real! life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): A Psalm of Life.

Which makes life itself a lie,

Flattering dust with eternity.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Sardanapalus. Act i. Sc. 2.

Woman's faith and woman's trust,

Write the characters in dust.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): The Betrothed. Chap. xx.

Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just,

Stoop'd down serene and wrote them in the dust,—

Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,

Swept from the earth and blotted from his mind.

There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie,

And grieved they could not 'scape the Almighty eye.

Samuel Madden (1687-1765): Boulter's Monument.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust

But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The World.