Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!

Thomas Noel: The Pauper's Ride.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,

Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;

Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,

A little louder, but as empty quite;

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,

And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.

Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,

Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 274.

In the lost battle,

Borne down by the flying,

Where mingles war's rattle

With groans of the dying.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Marmion. Canto iii. Stanza 11.