What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,

Of Attic taste?

John Milton (1608-1674): To Mr. Lawrence.

The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,

Writ in remembrance more than things long past.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1.

They never taste who always drink;

They always talk who never think.

Matthew Prior (1664-1721): Upon a passage in the Scaligerana.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act ii. Sc. 2.

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little

More than a little is by much too much.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Come, give us a taste of your quality.

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

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.

Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,

The mist in my face.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,

The heroes of old;

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness, and cold.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Prospice.

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 1.