star (n.)

star (v.)

star (adj.)

'T were all one

That I should love a bright particular star,

And think to wed it.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): All's Well that Ends Well. Act i. Sc. 1.

But I am constant as the northern star,

Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality

There is no fellow in the firmament.

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

The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): One Word is too often profaned.

From morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,—

A summer's day; and with the setting sun

Dropp'd from the Zenith like a falling star.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 742.

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye;

Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): She dwelt among the untrodden ways.

A star for every State, and a State for every star.

Robert C Winthrop (1809-1894): Address on Boston Common in 1862.

Small have continual plodders ever won

Save base authority from others' books.

These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights

That give a name to every fixed star

Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy. . . . Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,—in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797): Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331.

Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 110.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): The Conduct of Life. Civilization.

And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,

This pendent world, in bigness as a star

Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 1051.

For every wave with dimpled face

That leap'd upon the air,

Had caught a star in its embrace

And held it trembling there.

Amelia B. Welby (1821-1852): Musings. Stanza 4.

Led by the light of the Maeonian star.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 89.

Her blue eyes sought the west afar,

For lovers love the western star.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iii. Stanza 24.

Man is his own star; and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man

Commands all light, all influence, all fate.

Nothing to him falls early, or too late.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

John Fletcher (1576-1625): Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."

Oh never star

Was lost here but it rose afar.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Waring. ii.

But he is risen, a later star of dawn.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): A Morning Exercise.

Westward the star of empire takes its way.—John Quincy Adams: Oration at Plymouth, 1802.

As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean

Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,

So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,

Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.

As still to the star of its worship, though clouded,

The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,

So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded,

The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): The Heart's Prayer.

And o'er them the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,—

That star of life's tremulous ocean.

Paul Moon James (1780-1854): The Beacon.

The meteor flag of England

Shall yet terrific burn,

Till danger's troubled night depart,

And the star of peace return.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Ye Mariners of England.

And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,

This pendent world, in bigness as a star

Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 1051.

The star of the unconquered will.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): The Light of Stars.

The moving moon went up the sky,

And nowhere did abide;

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Ancient Mariner. Part iv.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The soul that rises with us, our life's star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.

Whilst twilight's curtain spreading far,

Was pinned with a single star.

Mcdonald Clarke (1798-1842): Death in Disguise. Line 227. (Boston edition, 1833.)

"He thus describes the closing day":—

Now twilight lets her curtain down,

And pins it with a star.

Careful Words

star (n.)

star (v.)

star (adj.)