When all the world dissolves,

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that are not heaven.

Christopher Marlowe (1565-1593): Faustus.

Beholding heaven, and feeling hell.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): The Fire-Worshippers.

Here we may reign secure; and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 261.

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee: I 'll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell

Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,

Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws

To cast thee up again. What may this mean,

That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel

Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous, and we fools of nature

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

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

All hell broke loose.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 918.

Weave the warp, and weave the woof,

The winding-sheet of Edward's race.

Give ample room and verge enough

The characters of hell to trace.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): The Bard. II. 1, Line 1.

Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind

Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 531.

The cunning livery of hell.

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

The damned use that word in hell.

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

Who dares think one thing, and another tell,

My heart detests him as the gates of hell.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 412.

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip

To haud the wretch in order;

But where ye feel your honour grip,

Let that aye be your border.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Epistle to a Young Friend.

Didst thou never hear

That things ill got had ever bad success?

And happy always was it for that son

Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Hell

Grew darker at their frown.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 719.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

William Congreve (1670-1729): The Mourning Bride. Act iii. Sc. 8.

Which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 73.

Nor jealousy

Was understood, the injur'd lover's hell.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 449.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them.

 .   .   .   .

Into the jaws of death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 3.

Hell is full of good meanings and wishings.

George Herbert (1593-1632): Jacula Prudentum.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,

What hell it is in suing long to bide:

To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;

To wast long nights in pensive discontent;

To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;

To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;

To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;

To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,

To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.

Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,

That doth his life in so long tendance spend!

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Mother Hubberds Tale. Line 895.

'T is now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world.

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

Long is the way

And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 432.

In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 20.

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,

Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 73.

A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 253.

The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,

And boil in endless torture.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 69.

O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies

In the small orb of one particular tear.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Lover's Complaint. Line 288.

Hold thou the good; define it well;

For fear divine Philosophy

Should push beyond her mark, and be

Procuress to the Lords of Hell.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. liii. Stanza 4.

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 42.

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.

Let none admire

That riches grow in hell: that soil may best

Deserve the precious bane.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 690.

All hell shall stir for this.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.

The bell invites me.

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

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

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.

Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites,

Hell threatens.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 292.

O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.

To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,

Who never mentions hell to ears polite.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle iv. Line 149.

I fled, and cry'd out, Death!

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd

From all her caves, and back resounded, Death!

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 787.

'T was whisper'd in heaven, 't was mutter'd in hell,

And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell;

On the confines of earth 't was permitted to rest,

And the depths of the ocean its presence confess'd.

Catherine M. Fanshawe (1764-1834): Enigma. The letter H.

Which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 73.

The hell within him.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 20.