And my large kingdom for a little grave,

A little little grave, an obscure grave.

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

And my large kingdom for a little grave,

A little little grave, an obscure grave.

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

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,

My very noble and approv'd good masters,

That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,

It is most true; true, I have married her:

The very head and front of my offending

Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,

And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace:

For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,

Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used

Their dearest action in the tented field,

And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,

And therefore little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver

Of my whole course of love.

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

With grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd

A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone,

Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer's noontide air.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 300.

A little rule, a little sway,

A sunbeam in a winter's day,

Is all the proud and mighty have

Between the cradle and the grave.

John Dyer (1700-1758): Grongar Hill. Line 88.

One that would peep and botanize

Upon his mother's grave.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): A Poet's Epitaph. Stanza 5.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh

The difference to me!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): She dwelt among the untrodden ways.

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.

The Grave, dread thing!

Men shiver when thou 'rt named: Nature, appall'd,

Shakes off her wonted firmness.

Robert Blair (1699-1747): The Grave. Part i. Line 9.

In yonder grave a Druid lies.

William Collins (1720-1756): Death of Thomson.

Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well:

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung,

Not she denied him with unholy tongue;

She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave,

Last at his cross and earliest at his grave.

Eaton S. Barrett (1785-1820): Woman, Part i. (ed. 1822).

Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys

Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;

Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet

Clear of the grave.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Hamatreya.

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?

Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?

Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low

Some less majestic, less beloved head?

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 168.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

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

  Ham.  There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark

But he's an arrant knave.

  Hor.  There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave

To tell us this.

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

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.

But since he had

The genius to be loved, why let him have

The justice to be honoured in his grave.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861): Crowned and buried. xxvii.

Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Seasons. Winter. Line 393.

Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,

But not remember'd in thy epitaph!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

There is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound may be,—

In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,

Or in the wide desert where no life is found.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Sonnet. Silence.

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.

And my large kingdom for a little grave,

A little little grave, an obscure grave.

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

'T is beauty truly blent, whose red and white

Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:

Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive

If you will lead these graces to the grave

And leave the world no copy.

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

I would that I were low laid in my grave:

I am not worth this coil that's made for me.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act ii. Sc. 1.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh

The difference to me!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): She dwelt among the untrodden ways.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,

The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 10.

Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

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

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?

Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

James Beattie (1735-1803): The Hermit.

Sleep is a death; oh, make me try

By sleeping what it is to die,

And as gently lay my head

On my grave as now my bed!

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682): Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. xii.

One foot in the grave.

Beaumont And Fletcher: The Little French Lawyer. Act i. Sc. 1.

In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,

Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,

Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee,

There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Spectator. No. 68.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Await alike the inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 9.

Perhaps the early grave

Which men weep over may be meant to save.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 12.

Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

William Knox (1789-1825): Mortality.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,

Who rush to glory or the grave!

Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry!

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Hohenlinden.

The tyrant custom, most grave senators,

Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war

My thrice-driven bed of down.

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

Who track the steps of glory to the grave.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Monody on the Death of Sheridan. Line 74.

I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,

And not have strew'd thy grave.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.

Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,

Four spend in prayer, the rest on Nature fix.

Sir Edward Coke (1549-1634): Translation of lines quoted by Coke.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,

Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,

With here and there a violet bestrewn,

Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave;

And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

James Beattie (1735-1803): The Minstrel. Book ii. Stanza 17.

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.

Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,

Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826): At a Funeral. No. ii.

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,

By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,

By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,

By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourn'd!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 51.

Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer

From grave to gay, from lively to severe.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 379.

Happy who in his verse can gently steer

From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.

John Dryden (1631-1701): The Art of Poetry. Canto i. Line 75.

Happy who in his verse can gently steer

From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.

Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux (1636-1711): The Art of Poetry. Canto i. Line 75.

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 179.

An untimely grave.

Thomas Carew (1589-1639): On the Duke of Buckingham.

Untimely grave.

Tate And Brady: Psalm vii.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O grave! where is thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting?

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Dying Christian to his Soul.

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Verses to Edmund Spenser.