Drink ye to her that each loves best!

And if you nurse a flame

That's told but to her mutual breast,

We will not ask her name.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Drink ye to Her.

Virtue could see to do what virtue would

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon

Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self

Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,

Where with her best nurse Contemplation

She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings,

That in the various bustle of resort

Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.

He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts

Benighted walks under the midday sun.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 373.

O Caledonia! stern and wild,

Meet nurse for a poetic child!

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood;

Land of the mountain and the flood!

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 2.

O sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse! how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.

The land of scholars and the nurse of arms.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Traveller. Line 356.

Hope! thou nurse of young desire.

Isaac Bickerstaff (1735-1787): Love in a Village. Act i. Sc. 1.