worm (n.)

worm (v.)

As is the bud bit with an envious worm

Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,

Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,

The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 10.

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

New Testament: Mark ix. 44.

Duke. And what's her history?

Vio. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,

And with a green and yellow melancholy

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.

A worm is in the bud of youth,

And at the root of age.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Stanzas subjoined to a Bill of Mortality.

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

I would not enter on my list of friends

(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,

Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 560.

Fear not, then, thou child infirm;

There's no god dare wrong a worm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Compensation.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

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

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;

The worm, the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: On my Thirty-sixth Year.

The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.

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