O fading honours of the dead!

O high ambition, lowly laid!

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 10.

Let the world slide, let the world go;

A fig for care, and a fig for woe!

If I can't pay, why I can owe,

And death makes equal the high and low.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Be Merry Friends.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

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

"High characters," cries one, and he would see

Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor e'er will be.

Sir John Suckling (1609-1641): The Goblins. Epilogue.

There studious let me sit,

And hold high converse with the mighty dead.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Seasons. Winter. Line 431.

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,

Fallen from his high estate,

And welt'ring in his blood;

Deserted, at his utmost need,

By those his former bounty fed,

On the bare earth expos'd he lies,

With not a friend to close his eyes.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 77.

A high hope for a low heaven.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.

Those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings,

Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts before which our mortal nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.

'T is from high life high characters are drawn;

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 135.

I live not in myself, but I become

Portion of that around me; and to me

High mountains are a feeling, but the hum

Of human cities torture.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 72.

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.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades

High over-arch'd imbower.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 302.

A pillar'd shade

High overarch'd, and echoing walks between.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 1106.

Plain living and high thinking are no more.

The homely beauty of the good old cause

Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,

And pure religion breathing household laws.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): O Friend! I know not which way I must look.

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns

As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:

To Him no high, no low, no great, no small;

He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 277.

Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth

The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,

And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,

And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely

His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,

And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,

This many summers in a sea of glory,

But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride

At length broke under me and now has left me,

Weary and old with service, to the mercy

Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.

Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:

I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched

Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!

There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,

That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,

More pangs and fears than wars or women have:

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,

Never to hope again.

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

To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): The Bard. I. 2, Line 14.