flame

Nought so of love this looser dame did skill, But as a coal to kindle fleshly flame, Giving the bridle to her wanton will, And treading underfoot her honest name.

—Spenser, Edmund

This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game. Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast, Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.

—Jeffers, (John) Robinson

If we turn to early Irish literature, as we naturally may, to see what sort of people the Irish were in the infancy of the race, we find ourselves wandering in delighted bewilderment through a darkness shot with lightning and purple flame.

—O'Faolain, Sean

All thoughts, all passions, all delights Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

—Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Thus our twin souls in one shall grow, And teach the world new love, Redeem the age and sex, and show A flame fate dares not move: And courting death to be our friend, Our lives, together too, shall end.

—Philips, Katherine ne¤  e Fowler

The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

   What do the facts we know about a man amount to? Only two things we can know of him, and this by pure soul-intuition: we can know if he is true to the flame of life and love which is inside his heart, or if he is false to it.

—Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil† Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wearsman'ssmudgeand sharesman'ssmell: thesoil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

—Hopkins, SirAnthony

The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.

—Hemans, Felicia ne¤  e Browne

Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name; So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.

—Donne,John

And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead and with its head He went galumphing back. 'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to myarms, my beamish boy! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy.

—Dodgson

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

To bring the dead to life Is no great magic. Feware wholly dead: Blow on a dead man's embers And a live flame will start.

—Graves, Robert von Ranke

L'amour n'est pas un feu que l'on tient dans la main. Love is not a flame that one holds in the hand. '

—Marguerite d'Angoule"  me

A most horrid malicious bloody flame† It made me weep to see it.

—Pepys, Samuel

All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewelled shone the saddle leather, The helmet and the helmet-feather Burned like one burning flame together, As he rode down to Camelot.

—Tennyson

How, like a moth, the simple maid Still plays around the flame!

—Gay,John

Love's but the frailty of the mind, When 'tis not with ambition joined; A sickly flame, which if not fed expires; And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires.

—Congreve,William

Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

   What things have we seen, Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtil flame, As if that every one from whence they came, Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolv'd to live a fool, the rest Of his dull life.

—Beaumont, Francis

They were madmen, but they had in them that little flame which never dies.

—Renoir, Pierre Auguste

And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into a crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

What thing is love for (well I wot) love is a thing. It is a prick, it is a sting, It is a pretty, pretty thing; It is a fire, it is a coal Whose flame creeps in at every hole.

—Peele, George

His love was passion's essence:öas a tree On fire by lightning, with ethereal flame Kindled he was, and blasted.

—Rochdale