Th' ethereal mould

Incapable of stain would soon expel

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,

Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope

Is flat despair.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 139.

Through the laburnum's dropping gold

Rose the light shaft of Orient mould,

And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,

Purpled the mossbeds at its feet.

John Keble (1792-1866): The Palm-Tree.

Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 244.

Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,

And broke the die, in moulding Sheridan.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Monody on the Death of Sheridan. Line 117.

Here lies James Quinn. Deign, reader, to be taught,

Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought,

In Nature's happiest mould however cast,

To this complexion thou must come at last.

David Garrick (1716-1779): Epitaph on Quinn. Murphy's Life of Garrick, Vol. ii. p. 38.

The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

The observed of all observers!

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

Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old

To the very verge of the churchyard mould.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Her Moral.