Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo,

The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 12.

Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe,

Are lost on hearers that our merits know.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book x. Line 293.

This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,

For Freedom only deals the deadly blow;

Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,

For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848): Written in an Album, 1842.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 803.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 1.

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.

March to the battle-field,

The foe is now before us;

Each heart is Freedom's shield,

And heaven is shining o'er us.

B. E. O'Meara (1778-1836): March to the Battle-Field.

What boots it at one gate to make defence,

And at another to let in the foe?

John Milton (1608-1674): Samson Agonistes. Line 560.

Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,

Bold I can meet,—perhaps may turn his blow!

But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,

Save, save, oh save me from the candid friend!

George Canning (1770-1827): New Morality.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

Or ever I had seen that day.

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

Who overcomes

By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 648.

Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! They come! they come!"

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 25.

Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove

An unrelenting foe to love;

And when we meet a mutual heart,

Come in between and bid us part?

James Thomson (1700-1748): Song.

Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow,

That tends to make one worthy man my foe.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 283.

Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;

They took the spear, but left the shield.

Philip Freneau (1752-1832): To the Memory of the Americans who fell at Eutaw.

This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,

For Freedom only deals the deadly blow;

Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,

For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848): Written in an Album, 1842.

Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend;

And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book vii. Line 364.

He ne'er is crown'd

With immortality, who fears to follow

Where airy voices lead.

John Keats (1795-1821): Endymion. Book ii.

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field and his feet to the foe,

And leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Lochiel's Warning.