Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes;

Flow gently, I 'll sing thee a song in thy praise.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Flow gently, sweet Afton.

Don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?

Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown;

Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,

And trembl'd with fear at your frown!

Thomas Dunn English (1819-1902): Ben Bolt.

All that's bright must fade,—

The brightest still the fleetest;

All that's sweet was made

But to be lost when sweetest.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): All that's Bright must fade.

Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 3.

'T is beauty truly blent, whose red and white

Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:

Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive

If you will lead these graces to the grave

And leave the world no copy.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 5.

Go, lovely rose!

Tell her that wastes her time and me

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): Go, Lovely Rose.

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): Go, Lovely Rose.

As sweet and musical

As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives.

George Herbert (1593-1632): Virtue.

Delivers in such apt and gracious words

That aged ears play truant at his tales,

And younger hearings are quite ravished;

So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

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

Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 40.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.

A rosebud set with little wilful thorns,

And sweet as English air could make her, she.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Princess. Part i. Line 153.

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;

Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;

Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,

But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,

Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 329.

'T is sweet, as year by year we lose

Friends out of sight, in faith to muse

How grows in Paradise our store.

John Keble (1792-1866): Burial of the Dead.

For contemplation he and valour form'd,

For softness she and sweet attractive grace;

He for God only, she for God in him.

His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd

Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks

Round from his parted forelock manly hung

Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 297.

A sweet attractive kinde of grace,

A full assurance given by lookes,

Continuall comfort in a face

The lineaments of Gospell bookes.

Mathew Roydon (Circa 1586): An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill.

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 1.

Beautiful as sweet,

And young as beautiful, and soft as young,

And gay as soft, and innocent as gay!

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 81.

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

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

The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): All's Well that Ends Well. Act v. Sc. 3.

How sad and bad and mad it was!

But then, how it was sweet!

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Confessions. ix.

Sweetest melodies

Are those that are by distance made more sweet.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Personal Talk. Stanza 2.

Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): To a Butterfly. I 've watched you now a full half-hour.

Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,

Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 133.

How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start

When memory plays an old tune on the heart!

Eliza Cook (1817-1889): Old Dobbin.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky.

George Herbert (1593-1632): Virtue.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie.

George Herbert (1593-1632): Virtue.

Sydneian showers

Of sweet discourse, whose powers

Can crown old Winter's head with flowers.

Richard Crashaw (Circa 1616-1650): Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.

A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Delight in Disorder.

Every white will have its blacke,

And every sweet its soure.

Thomas Percy (1728-1811): Reliques of Ancient Poetry. Sir Cauline.

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.

With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,

And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Princess. Prologue. Line 141.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on,—

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.

John Keats (1795-1821): Ode on a Grecian Urn.

She stood breast-high amid the corn

Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,

Like the sweetheart of the sun,

Who many a glowing kiss had won.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Ruth.

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!

How sweet their memory still!

But they have left an aching void

The world can never fill.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Walking with God.

They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet

Quaff immortality and joy.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 637.

In discourse more sweet;

For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.

Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high

Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,

Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;

And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 555.

It is the hour when from the boughs

The nightingale's high note is heard;

It is the hour when lovers' vows

Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Parisina. Stanza 1.

'T is sweet, as year by year we lose

Friends out of sight, in faith to muse

How grows in Paradise our store.

John Keble (1792-1866): Burial of the Dead.

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.

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,—

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 58.

Sweet is revenge—especially to women.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 124.

I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,—

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

But grant me still a friend in my retreat,

Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Retirement. Line 739.

With thee conversing I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change,—all please alike.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,

Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers; and sweet the coming on

Of grateful ev'ning mild; then silent night

With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,

And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:

But neither breath of morn when she ascends

With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun

On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,

Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,

Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night

With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon

Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 639.

My country, 't is of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing:

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims' pride,

From every mountain-side

Let freedom ring.

Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895): National Hymn.

There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,

To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.

Charles Dibdin (1745-1814): Poor Jack.

No tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Sunrise on the Hills.

O thou weed,

Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet

That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,

Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines written in Early Spring.

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

The perfume and suppliance of a minute.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Love's Young Dream.

Sweet Phosphor, bring the day

Whose conquering ray

May chase these fogs;

Sweet Phosphor, bring the day!

Sweet Phosphor, bring the day!

Light will repay

The wrongs of night;

Sweet Phosphor, bring the day!

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Emblems. Book i. Emblem 14.

Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act i. Sc. 1.

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape

Crush'd the sweet poison of misused wine.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 46.

Implied

Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway,

And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,—

Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,

And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 307.

And hie him home, at evening's close,

To sweet repast and calm repose.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 87.

Revenge, at first though sweet,

Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 171.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

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

O give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall!

Charles Morris (1739-1832): Town and Country.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet xxx.

No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,

No arborett with painted blossoms drest

And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd

To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto vi. St. 12.

Such is the aspect of this shore;

'T is Greece, but living Greece no more!

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start, for soul is wanting there.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 90.

So sweet was ne'er so fatal.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,

Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.

War, he sung, is toil and trouble;

Honour but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying.

If all the world be worth the winning,

Think, oh think it worth enjoying:

Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 97.

I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,—

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

But grant me still a friend in my retreat,

Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Retirement. Line 739.

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

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

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.

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.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie.

George Herbert (1593-1632): Virtue.

Sweet swan of Avon!

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): To the Memory of Shakespeare.

Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;

And humble cares, and delicate fears;

A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;

And love and thought and joy.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Sparrow's Nest.

Who has not felt how sadly sweet

The dream of home, the dream of home,

Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,

When far o'er sea or land we roam?

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): The Dream of Home.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here we will sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

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

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!

How sweet their memory still!

But they have left an aching void

The world can never fill.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Walking with God.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark

Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;

'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 123.

To live with them is far less sweet

Than to remember thee.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): I saw thy Form.

The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.

How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,

Within whose circuit is Elysium

And all that poets feign of bliss and joy!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 2.

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!

How sweet their memory still!

But they have left an aching void

The world can never fill.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Walking with God.

I thank you for your voices: thank you:

Your most sweet voices.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will;

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Earth has not anything to show more fair.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.