Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;

Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:

And so make life, death, and that vast forever

One grand sweet song.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875): A Farewell.

To many a youth and many a maid

Dancing in the chequer'd shade.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 95.

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Kubla Khan.

But 'neath yon crimson tree

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,

Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,

Her blush of maiden shame.

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878): Autumn Woods.

Whanne that April with his shoures sote

The droughte of March hath perced to the rote.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 1.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,

While yet in early Greece she sung.

William Collins (1720-1756): The Passions. Line 1.

Maid of Athens, ere we part,

Give, oh give me back my heart!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Maid of Athens.

The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Seasons. Winter. Line 625.

Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,

Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Eloisa to Abelard. Line 51.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,

Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!

William Collins (1720-1756): The Passions. Line 95.

The sweetest garland to the sweetest maid.

Thomas Tickell (1686-1740): To a Lady with a Present of Flowers.

The chariest maid is prodigal enough,

If she unmask her beauty to the moon:

Virtue itself'scapes not calumnious strokes:

The canker galls the infants of the spring

Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth

Contagious blastments are most imminent.

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

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,—

A maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love.

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

Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,

When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid!

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

The maid who modestly conceals

Her beauties, while she hides, reveals;

Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws

Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.

Edward Moore (1712-1757): The Spider and the Bee. Fable x.

Widowed wife and wedded maid.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): The Betrothed. Chap. xv.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,—

A maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love.

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