Thyself and thy belongings

Are not thine own so proper as to waste

Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd

But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines

Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 1.

Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,

Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.

Thomas Middleton (1580-1627): The Witch. Act v. Sc. 2.

Spirits when they please

Can either sex assume, or both.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 423.

The choice and master spirits of this age.

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

We are spirits clad in veils;

Man by man was never seen;

All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Christopher P Cranch (1813-1892): Stanzas.

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,

The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;

Of him who walked in glory and in joy,

Following his plough, along the mountain-side.

By our own spirits we are deified;

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness,

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Resolution and Independence. Stanza 7.

Glen.  I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Hot.  Why, so can I, or so can any man;

But will they come when you do call for them?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.

The heart ran o'er

With silent worship of the great of old!

The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule

Our spirits from their urns.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Manfred. Act iii. Sc. 4.

From toil he wins his spirits light,

From busy day the peaceful night;

Rich, from the very want of wealth,

In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 93.

And is there care in Heaven? And is there love

In heavenly spirits to these Creatures bace?

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto viii. St. 1.

Often do the spirits

Of great events stride on before the events,

And in to-day already walks to-morrow.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Death of Wallenstein. Act v. Sc. 1.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.

It sounds like stories from the land of spirits

If any man obtains that which he merits,

Or any merit that which he obtains.

  .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!

Hath he not always treasures, always friends,

The good great man? Three treasures,—love and light,

And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;

And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,—

Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Complaint. Ed. 1852. The Good Great Man. Ed. 1893.

Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,—

Take, I give it willingly;

For, invisible to thee,

Spirits twain have crossed with me.

Johann L Uhland (1787-1862): The Passage. Edinburgh Review, October, 1832.

Spirits that live throughout,

Vital in every part, not as frail man,

In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,

Cannot but by annihilating die.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book vi. Line 345.