Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.

John Milton (1608-1674): Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 135.

Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,

Than all the gems of Samarcand.

Sir William Jones (1746-1794): A Persian Song of Hafiz.

All is not gold that glisteneth.

Thomas Middleton (1580-1627): A Fair Quarrel. Act v. Sc. 1.

All that glisters is not gold.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 7.

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,

And almost every vice,—almighty gold.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.

No, let the monarch's bags and others hold

The flattering, mighty, nay, al-mighty gold.

John Wolcot (1738-1819): To Kien Long. Ode iv.

High on a throne of royal state, which far

Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,

Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd

To that bad eminence.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 1.

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 3.

How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold

The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!

John Ferriar (1764-1815): Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 137.

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

Bright and yellow, hard and cold.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Her Moral.

The princeps copy, clad in blue and gold.

John Ferriar (1764-1815): Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 6.

That book in many's eyes doth share the glory

That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 3.

What female heart can gold despise?

What cat's averse to fish?

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): On the death of a Favourite Cat.

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

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

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Destruction of Sennacherib.

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

Bright and yellow, hard and cold.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Her Moral.

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,

Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): To the Dandelion.

For gold in phisike is a cordial;

Therefore he loved gold in special.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 445.

For him was lever han at his beddes hed

A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red,

Of Aristotle, and his philosophie,

Than robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie.

But all be that he was a philosophre,

Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 295.

For gold in phisike is a cordial;

Therefore he loved gold in special.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 445.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne,

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He stared at the Pacific, and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats (1795-1821): On first looking into Chapman's Homer.

Through the laburnum's dropping gold

Rose the light shaft of Orient mould,

And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,

Purpled the mossbeds at its feet.

John Keble (1792-1866): The Palm-Tree.

Life is not to be bought with heaps of gold:

Not all Apollo's Pythian treasures hold,

Or Troy once held, in peace and pride of sway,

Can bribe the poor possession of a day.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 524.

'T is an old tale and often told;

But did my fate and wish agree,

Ne'er had been read, in story old,

Of maiden true betray'd for gold,

That loved, or was avenged, like me.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Marmion. Canto ii. Stanza 27.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 7.

But all thing which that shineth as the gold

Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Chanones Yemannes Tale. Line 16430.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here we will sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.

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.

Saint-seducing gold.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.

Call it not vain: they do not err

Who say that when the poet dies

Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,

And celebrates his obsequies.

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

But all thing which that shineth as the gold

Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Chanones Yemannes Tale. Line 16430.

She is mine own,

And I as rich in having such a jewel

As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold.

John Ferriar (1764-1815): Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 65.

And yet he had a thomb of gold parde.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 565.

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell

From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd

In vision beatific.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 679.

Turning, for them who pass, the common dust

Of servile opportunity to gold.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Desultory Stanza.

Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!

What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!

What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,

Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea:

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,

As 't were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 4.

Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,

Where in nice balance truth with gold she weighs,

And solid pudding against empty praise.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Dunciad. Book i. Line 52.

So dear a life your arms enfold,

Whose crying is a cry for gold.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Daisy. Stanza 24.

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.