The hum of either army stilly sounds,

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch;

Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

Each battle sees the other's umbered face;

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs

Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents

The armourers, accomplishing the knights,

With busy hammers closing rivets up,

Give dreadful note of preparation.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iv. Prologue.

And topples round the dreary west

A looming bastion fringed with fire.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. xv. Stanza 5.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Burnt child fire dredth.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ii.

P.  What riches give us let us then inquire:

Meat, fire, and clothes. B.  What more? P.  Meat, fine clothes, and fire.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 79.

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.

Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,

At certain revolutions all the damn'd

Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes,—extremes by change more fierce;

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,

Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 592.

Oh, tenderly the haughty day

Fills his blue urn with fire.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857.

Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

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

True love's the gift which God has given

To man alone beneath the heaven:

It is not fantasy's hot fire,

Whose wishes soon as granted fly;

It liveth not in fierce desire,

With dead desire it doth not die;

It is the secret sympathy,

The silver link, the silken tie,

Which heart to heart and mind to mind

In body and in soul can bind.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 13.

The fat is in the fire.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.

And topples round the dreary west

A looming bastion fringed with fire.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. xv. Stanza 5.

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.

Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,

At certain revolutions all the damn'd

Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes,—extremes by change more fierce;

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,

Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 592.

Years steal

Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb,

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 8.

I 'll example you with thievery:

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction

Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,

And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;

The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves

The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,

That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen

From general excrement: each thing's a thief.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Timon of Athens. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Leape out of the frying pan into the fyre.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,

The shooting-stars attend thee;

And the elves also,

Whose little eyes glow

Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): The Night Piece to Julia.

In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1.

Love in your hearts as idly burns

As fire in antique Roman urns.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 309.

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,

They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 5.

O, who can hold a fire in his hand

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow

By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

O, no! the apprehension of the good

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.

It shew'd discretion, the best part of valour.

Beaumont And Fletcher: A King and No King. Act iv. Sc. 3.

How great a matter a little fire kindleth!

New Testament: James iii. 5.

A little fire is quickly trodden out;

Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part III. Act iv. Sc. 8.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellions hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed,—

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): What is Prayer?

I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,

And give them voice and utterance once again.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 34.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Prologue.

O love! O fire! once he drew

With one long kiss my whole soul through

My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Fatima. Stanza 3.

One fire burns out another's burning,

One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 2.

Th' ethereal mould

Incapable of stain would soon expel

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,

Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope

Is flat despair.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 139.

Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire.

Alexander Smith (1830-1867): A Life Drama. Sc. ii.

I 'll example you with thievery:

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction

Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,

And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;

The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves

The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,

That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen

From general excrement: each thing's a thief.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Timon of Athens. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,

With whom revenge is virtue.

Edward Young (1684-1765): The Revenge. Act v. Sc. 2.

Bright-flaming, heat-full fire,

The source of motion.

Du Bartas (1544-1590): First Week, Second Day.

She was a form of life and light

That seen, became a part of sight,

And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,

The morning-star of memory!

Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;

A spark of that immortal fire

With angels shared, by Alla given,

To lift from earth our low desire.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 1127.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:

They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;

They are the books, the arts, the academes,

That show, contain, and nourish all the world.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Mine enemy's dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night

Against my fire.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 7.

Three removes are as bad as a fire.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.

It is always good

When a man has two irons in the fire.

William Drummond (1585-1649): The Faithful Friends. Act i. Sc. 2.

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,

And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,

Whom mortals call the moon.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): The Cloud. iv.

There is no fire without some smoke.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.

Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Reves Prologue. Line 3880.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben,

Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when

The world was worthy of such men.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861): A Vision of Poets.