Oh, many a shaft at random sent

Finds mark the archer little meant!

And many a word at random spoken

May soothe, or wound, a heart that's broken!

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lord of the Isles. Canto v. Stanza 18.

Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain;

And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night thoughts. Night i. Line 212.

Like a young eagle who has lent his plume

To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,

See their own feathers pluck'd to wing the dart

Which rank corruption destines for their heart.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Corruption.

Ah, when shall all men's good

Be each man's rule, and universal peace

Lie like a shaft of light across the land,

And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,

Thro' all the circle of the golden year?

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Golden Year.

Through the laburnum's dropping gold

Rose the light shaft of Orient mould,

And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,

Purpled the mossbeds at its feet.

John Keble (1792-1866): The Palm-Tree.

That eagle's fate and mine are one,

Which on the shaft that made him die

Espied a feather of his own,

Wherewith he wont to soar so high.

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing.

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,

And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 826.

In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,

I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight

The selfsame way, with more advised watch,

To find the other forth; and by adventuring both,

I oft found both.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,

And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 826.