How sad and bad and mad it was!

But then, how it was sweet!

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Confessions. ix.

But sad as angels for the good man's sin,

Weep to record, and blush to give it in.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 357.

Of all tales 't is the saddest,—and more sad,

Because it makes us smile.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto xiii. stanza 9.

'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild.

William Collins (1720-1756): The Passions. Line 28.

Sad fancies do we then affect,

In luxury of disrespect

To our own prodigal excess

Of too familiar happiness.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode to Lycoris.

You are my true and honourable wife,

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

'T is impious in a good man to be sad.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 676.

But hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

For seldom shall she hear a tale

So sad, so tender, and so true.

William Shenstone (1714-1763): Jemmy Dawson.

And nothing can we call our own but death

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound;

She feels no biting pang the while she sings;

Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,

Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.

Richard Gifford (1725-1807): Contemplation.

When the gray-hooded Even,

Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 188.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

John G Whittier (1807-892): Maud Muller.