But to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.

To me more dear, congenial to my heart,

One native charm, than all the gloss of art.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 253.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,—'t is a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

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

My native land, good night!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 13.

Ye mariners of England,

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,

The battle and the breeze!

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Ye Mariners of England.

Adieu! adieu! my native shore

Fades o'er the waters blue.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 13.

Toll for the brave!—

The brave that are no more!

All sunk beneath the wave,

Fast by their native shore!

William Cowper (1731-1800): On the Loss of the Royal George.

The head is not more native to the heart.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.

Such sights as youthful poets dream

On summer eyes by haunted stream.

Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,

Warble his native wood-notes wild.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 129.