Now came still evening on, and twilight gray

Had in her sober livery all things clad;

Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,

They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,

Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;

She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament

With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led

The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,

And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 598.

How widely its agencies vary,—

To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,—

As even its minted coins express,

Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess,

And now of a Bloody Mary.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Her Moral.

The dews of summer nights did fall,

The moon, sweet regent of the sky,

Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall

And many an oak that grew thereby.

W J Mickle (1734-1788): Cumnor Hall.

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you!

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;

To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad New Year,—

Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be queen o' the May.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The May Queen.

It was the calm and silent night!

Seven hundred years and fifty-three

Had Rome been growing up to might,

And now was queen of land and sea.

No sound was heard of clashing wars,

Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;

Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars

Held undisturbed their ancient reign

In the solemn midnight,

Centuries ago.

Alfred Domett (1811-1887): Christmas Hymn.

Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world and child of the skies!

Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold,

While ages on ages thy splendors unfold.

Timothy Dwight (1752-1817): Columbia.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Maud. Part i. xxii. Stanza 9.

Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day;

Let other hours be set apart for business.

To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk;

And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754): Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 2.

She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book iii. Line 208.

Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair,

And Greta woods are green,

And you may gather garlands there

Would grace a summer's queen.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Rokeby. Canto iii. Stanza 16.