Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

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

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; th' unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 105.

Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 9.

Nature, exerting an unwearied power,

Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;

Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads

The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Table Talk. Line 690.

That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. Line 1524.

He rush'd into the field, and foremost fighting fell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 23.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

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

Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar

Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;

Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear

The flying chariot through the field of air.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802): The Botanic Garden. Part i. Canto i. Line 289.

Our business in the field of fight

Is not to question, but to prove our might.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 304.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,

But we left him alone with his glory.

Charles Wolfe (1791-1823): The Burial of Sir John Moore.