dust

Dead, long dead, Long dead! And my heart is a handful of dust, And the wheels go over my head.

—Tennyson

But what is Dust, SaveTime's most lethal weapon, Her faithful ally and our sneaking foe?

—Sitwell, Sir (Francis) Osbert

Whohathmeasured thewatersinthehollowof hishand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

—Bible (Old Testament)

His iron coat all overgrown with rust, Was underneath envelope'  d with gold, Whose glistering gloss darkened with filthy dust, Well yet appeare'  d, to have been of old A work of rich entail, and curious mold, Woven with antics and wild imagery.

—Spenser, Edmund

Death is a dialogue between The Spirit and the Dust.

—Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society.

—Wordsworth,William

And shade is on the brightest wing, And dust forbids the birds to sing.

—Sitwell, Dame Edith Louisa

Dust in the air suspended Marks the place where a story ended.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

When Abraham Lincoln was shovelled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin† in the dust, in the cool tombs.

—Sandburg, Carl

The dust of creeds outworn.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an oak in the chimney are no epitaph of that oak, to tell me how high or how large that was; it tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell†and when a whirlwind hathblownthedustofthechurchyard intothe church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the church into the churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce,This is the Patrician, this the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran.

—Donne,John

As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

—Thomas, (Philip) Edward

   A little season of love and laughter, Of light and life, and pleasure and pain, And horror of outer darkness after, And dust returneth to dust again. Then the lesser life shall be as the greater, And the lover of life shall join the hater, And the one thing cometh sooner or later, And no one knoweth the loss or gain.

—Gordon, Adam Lindsay

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because theyare few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low: Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and mournersgo about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

—Bible (Old Testament)

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the L.

—Bible (Old Testament)

And the L God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

—Bible (Old Testament)

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shall return.

—Bible (Old Testament)

We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope ofthe Resurrectionto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

—Book of Common Prayer

   He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; Thou canst not soar where he is sitting nowö Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries,'She is near, she is near;' And the white rose weeps,'She is late;' The larkspur listens,'I hear, I hear;' And the lily whispers,'I wait.' She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airya tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat; Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.

—Tennyson

Ere Babylon was dust, The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, Met his own image walking in the garden, That apparition, sole of men, he saw.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Excuse My Dust.

—Parker, Dorothy ne¤  e Rothschild

And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

Theoretical webs, dirty webs, fusty webs, old and shrivelling away into nothingness, a fine dust.Who needs that kind of stuff. Far far better getting out into the open air and doing it, actually doing it, something solid and concrete and unconceptualisable.

—Kelman,James

   I am inclined tothink that the fargreater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselvesöthat we have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

—Berkeley, George

And the L God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

—Bible (Old Testament)

He ate and drank the precious Words, His Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was Dust.

—Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back; Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lacked any thing.

—Herbert, George

How beautiful is all this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride.

—Rochdale

   I remember my youth and the feeling that it will never come back any moreöthe feeling that I could last for ever, outlast thesea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effortöto death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expiresöand expires, too soon, too soonöbefore life itself.

—Connor, Sir William Neil pseudonym Cassandra

  If I should die, thinkonly this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich dust a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

—Brooke, Rupert Chawner

The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings: Scepter and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

—Shirley,James

It isn't just dust that is settling in Korea, Senator, it is American blood.

—MacArthur, Douglas

Lytle hwile leof beoth grene thonne hie eft fealewiath, feallath on eorthan and forweorniath weorthiath to duste. For a little while the leaves are green. Then they turn yellow, fall to the ground, and perish, turning to dust.

—Anonymous

Even so we in like manner, as soon as we were born, began to draw to our end, and had no sign of virtue to shew; but were consumed in our own wickedness. For the hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away with the wind; like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm; like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with a tempest, and passeth away as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day.

—Bible (Apocrypha)

And round thee with the breeze of song To stir a little dust of praise.

—Tennyson

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.

—Milton,John

Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

—1st Baron

   Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.

—Raleigh, Sir Walter

No matter how vital experiencemight be whileyou lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.

—Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson

The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

—Housman, A(lfred) E(dward)

Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

—Gray,Thomas

   Let them bestow on every airth a limb, Then open all my veins that I may swim To thee, my Maker, in that crimson lake; Then place my parboiled head upon a stake, Scatter my ashes, strew them in the airö Lord! since thou knowest where all these atoms are, I'm hopeful thou'lt recover once my dust, And confident thou'lt raise me with the just.

—Montrose,James Graham, 1st Marquis of

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the L pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

—Bible (Old Testament)

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

—Bible (Old Testament)

For I had expected always Some brightness to hold in trust, Some final innocence To save from dust

—Spender, Sir Stephen Harold

O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue To cry to thee, And then not hear it crying!

—Herbert, George

Shut close the door; press down the latch; Sleep in thy intellectual crust; Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch Near this unprofitable dust.

—Wordsworth,William

Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is racked with pains that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

—Tennyson

   One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washe'  d it away; Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. 'Vain man,'said she,'that doest in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortalise, For I my self shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipe'  d out likewise.' 'Not so,'quod I,'let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, And in the heavens write your glorious name. Where when as death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.'

—Spenser, Edmund

Come not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by. Child, if it were thine error or thy crime I care no longer, being all unblest; Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, And I desire to rest. Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie: Go by, go by.

—Tennyson

I mean, after all; you have to consider that we're only made out of dust. That's admittedly not much to go on and we shouldn't forget that. But even considering, I mean, it's sort of a bad beginning, we're not doing too bad. So I personally have faith that even in this lousy situation we're faced with we can make it.You get me?

—Dick, Philip K(indred)

It was prettily devised of Aesop,'The fly sat upon the axletree of the chariot-wheel and said, what a dust do I raise.'

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move, And when this dust falls to the urn In that state I came, return.

—Vaughan, Henry