With spots quadrangular of diamond form,

Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,

And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 217.

She walks the waters like a thing of life,

And seems to dare the elements to strife.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 3.

Oh, the gallant fisher's life!

It is the best of any;

'T is full of pleasure, void of strife,

And 't is beloved by many.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683): The Angler. (John Chalkhill.)

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 19.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;

Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art.

I warm'd both hands against the fire of life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864): Dying Speech of an old Philosopher.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): The Present Crisis.

He spake of love, such love as spirits feel

In worlds whose course is equable and pure;

No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,—

The past unsighed for, and the future sure.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Laodamia.