A sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,—

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion, all the interim is

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:

The Genius and the mortal instruments

Are then in council; and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.

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

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here we will sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.

That in our proper motion we ascend

Up to our native seat: descent and fall

To us is adverse.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 75.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed,—

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): What is Prayer?

Action is transitory,—a step, a blow;

The motion of a muscle, this way or that.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Borderers. Act iii.

When his veering gait

And every motion of his starry train

Seem governed by a strain

Of music, audible to him alone.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Triad.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world.

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

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.

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