A kick that scarce would move a horse

May kill a sound divine.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Yearly Distress.

Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 63.

Heaven open'd wide

Her ever during gates, harmonious sound,

On golden hinges moving.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 205.

A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,

And harsh in sound to thine.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Coriolanus. Act iv. Sc. 5.

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.

On a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,

Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

Harsh thunder.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 879.

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 1.

Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto xii. St. 70.

Where gripinge grefes the hart wounde,

And dolefulle dumps the mynde oppresse,

There music with her silver sound

With spede is wont to send redresse.

Thomas Percy (1728-1811): A Song to the Lute in Musicke.

Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,

To traverse climes beyond the western main;

Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,

And Niagara stuns with thundering sound.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Traveller. Line 409.

On a lone barren isle, where the wild roaring billows

Assail the stern rock, and the loud tempests rave,

The hero lies still, while the dew-drooping willows,

Like fond weeping mourners, lean over his grave.

The lightnings may flash and the loud thunders rattle;

He heeds not, he hears not, he's free from all pain;

He sleeps his last sleep, he has fought his last battle;

No sound can awake him to glory again!

Leonard Heath: The Grave of Bonaparte.

No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around.

John Milton (1608-1674): Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 53.

But the sound of the church-going bell

These valleys and rocks never heard;

Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,

Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.

But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Break, break, break.

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.

But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet

Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet;

And Death is beautiful as feet of friend

Coming with welcome at our journey's end.

For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,

A nature sloping to the southern side;

I thank her for it, though when clouds arise

Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): To George William Curtis.

Silently as a dream the fabric rose,

No sound of hammer or of saw was there.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 144.

A place in thy memory, dearest,

Is all that I claim;

To pause and look back when thou hearest

The sound of my name.

Gerald Griffin (1803-1840): A Place in thy Memory.

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium's capital had gather'd then

Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 21.

But the sound of the church-going bell

These valleys and rocks never heard;

Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,

Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.

Their rising all at once was as the sound

Of thunder heard remote.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 476.

The sweeter sound of woman's praise.

Thomas B Macaulay (1800-1859): Lines written in August, 1847.

Let the singing singers

With vocal voices, most vociferous,

In sweet vociferation out-vociferize

Even sound itself.

Henry Carey (1663-1743): Chrononhotonthologos. Act i. Sc. 1.

By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

William Congreve (1670-1729): The Mourning Bride. Act i. Sc. 1.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

My eyes are dim with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirred,

For the same sound is in my ears

Which in those days I heard.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Fountain.

There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;

The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;

What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more;

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Abt Vogler. ix.

There is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound may be,—

In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,

Or in the wide desert where no life is found.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Sonnet. Silence.

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,

Like softest music to attending ears!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

A sound so fine, there's nothing lives

'Twixt it and silence.

James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862): Virginius, Act v. Sc. 2.

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;

Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 66.

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it?—No! 't was but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 22.

Sweet is every sound,

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Princess. Part vii. Line 203.

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

To all the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Old Mortality. Chap. xxxiv.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!

Jehovah has triumph'd,—his people are free.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Sound the loud Timbrel.

They are not a pipe for fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him

In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,

As I do thee.—Something too much of this.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,—

A sound which makes us linger; yet—farewell!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 186.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): On the Power of Sound. xii.

In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill,

For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still;

While words of learned length and thundering sound

Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around;

And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew

That one small head could carry all he knew.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 209.