We bear it calmly, though a ponderous woe,

And still adore the hand that gives the blow.

John Pomfret (1667-1703): Verses to his Friend under Affliction.

As if the world and they were hand and glove.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Table Talk. Line 173.

His heart and hand both open and both free;

For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows;

Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Troilus and Cressida. Act iv. Sc. 5.

With an angry wafture of your hand,

Gave sign for me to leave you.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Better one byrde in hand than ten in the wood.

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

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

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

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand!

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 8.

Back and side go bare, go bare,

Both foot and hand go cold;

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,

Whether it be new or old.

Bishop Still (John) (1543-1607): Gammer Gurton's Needle. Act ii.

The freeman casting with unpurchased hand

The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894): Poetry, a Metrical Essay.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

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

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

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

I 've lately had two spiders

Crawling upon my startled hopes.

Now though thy friendly hand has brush'd 'em from me,

Yet still they crawl offensive to my eyes:

I would have some kind friend to tread upon 'em.

Colley Cibber (1671-1757): Richard III. (altered). Act iv. Sc. 3.

Auld Nature swears the lovely dears

Her noblest work she classes, O;

Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,

And then she made the lasses, O!

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Green grow the Rashes.

His red right hand.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 174.

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.

Yet I argue not

Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot

Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer

Right onward.

John Milton (1608-1674): Sonnet xxii. To Cyriac Skinner.

Let's go hand in hand, not one before another.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Comedy of Errors. Act v. Sc. 1.

Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;

The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.

They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book xii. Line 645.

Thus hand in hand through life we 'll go;

Its checker'd paths of joy and woe

With cautious steps we 'll tread.

Nathaniel Cotton (1707-1788): The Fireside. Stanza 31.

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;

Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.

When Israel was from bondage led,

Led by the Almighty's hand

From out of foreign land,

The great sea beheld and fled.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): Davideis. Book i. Line 41.

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,

And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 83.

One to destroy is murder by the law,

And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe;

To murder thousands takes a specious name,

War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Love of Fame. Satire vii. Line 55.

My nature is subdu'd

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet cxi.

May no rude hand deface it,

And its forlorn hic jacet!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ellen Irwin.

No greater grief than to remember days

Of joy when misery is at hand.

Dante (1265-1321): Hell. Canto v. Line 121.

Morn,

Wak'd by the circling hours, with rosy hand

Unbarr'd the gates of light.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book vi. Line 2.

We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.

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

'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.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,—

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

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

He hath a tear for pity, and a hand

Open as day for melting charity.

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

O Heaven, that such companions thou 'ldst unfold,

And put in every honest hand a whip

To lash the rascals naked through the world!

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

The other shape,

If shape it might be call'd that shape had none

Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;

Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,

For each seem'd either,—black it stood as night,

Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 666.

I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.

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

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.

Another's sword has laid him low,

Another's and another's;

And every hand that dealt the blow—

Ah me! it was a brother's!

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): O'Connor's Child. Stanza 10.

Bless the hand that gave the blow.

John Dryden (1631-1701): The Spanish Friar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

We bear it calmly, though a ponderous woe,

And still adore the hand that gives the blow.

John Pomfret (1667-1703): Verses to his Friend under Affliction.

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.

For ever singing as they shine,

The hand that made us is divine.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Ode.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew:

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): The Problem.

Then join in hand, brave Americans all!

By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.

John Dickinson (1732-1808): The Liberty Song (1768).

And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove,

Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Annus Mirabilis. Stanza 39.

Time has laid his hand

Upon my heart gently, not smiting it,

But as a harper lays his open palm

Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): The Golden Legend. iv.

What's not devoured by Time's devouring hand?

Where's Troy, and where's the Maypole in the Strand?

James Bramston (1694-1744): Art of Politics.

And statesmen at her council met

Who knew the seasons, when to take

Occasion by the hand, and make

The bounds of freedom wider yet.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): To the Queen.

But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Break, break, break.

Unbless'd thy hand, if in this low disguise

Wander, perhaps, some inmate of the skies.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xvii. Line 576.

The man that lays his hand upon a woman,

Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch

Whom 't were gross flattery to name a coward.

John Tobin (1770-1804): The Honeymoon. Act ii. Sc. 1.

And as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,

Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Evangeline. Part ii. 5.

Presume to lay their hand upon the ark

Of her magnificent and awful cause.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 231.

He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"

And played familiar with his hoary locks.

Robert Pollok (1799-1827): The Course of Time. Book iv. Line 389.

Hands promiscuously applied,

Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Waltz.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.

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

Adieu, she cried, and waved her lily hand.

John Gay (1688-1732): Sweet William's Farewell to Black-eyed Susan.

They may seize

On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand

And steal immortal blessing from her lips,

Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,

Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.

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

Fer.  Here's my hand.

Mir.  And mine, with my heart in 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act iii. Sc. 1.

Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,

And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,

Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,

No son of mine succeeding.

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

'T is elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand,—

Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night ix. Line 644.

I hear a voice you cannot hear,

Which says I must not stay;

I see a hand you cannot see,

Which beckons me away.

Thomas Tickell (1686-1740): Colin and Lucy.

I know a hawk from a handsaw.

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