A kind and gentle heart he had,

To comfort friends and foes;

The naked every day he clad

When he put on his clothes.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.

Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself

That hideous sight,—a naked human heart.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 226.

O, who can hold a fire in his hand

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow

By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

O, no! the apprehension of the good

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.

Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,

And falls on the other.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

On parent knees, a naked new-born child,

Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled;

So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,

Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.

Sir William Jones (1746-1794): From the Persian.

O Heaven, that such companions thou 'ldst unfold,

And put in every honest hand a whip

To lash the rascals naked through the world!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, he would not in mine age

Have left me naked to mine enemies.

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

And thus I clothe my naked villany

With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,

And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sear.

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878): The Death of the Flowers.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you

From seasons such as these?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.