Onlyöbut this is rareö When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When, jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafened ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caressedö A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again. The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems,'The Buried Life', l.77^87.

What art thou that dost creep into my breast And dar'st not see my face? Show forth thyself. I feel a pair of fiery wings displayed Hither, from thence.You shall not tarry there; Up and begone. If thou beest love, begone.

-Beaumont, Francis and Fletcher,John
A King and No King, act 3, sc.1.

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.

-Browning, Robert
  Asolando, epilogue.

Wee, sleeket, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an'chase thee, Wi'murd'ring pattle!

-Burns, Robert
  'To A Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest with the Plough, November,1785', stanza1.

Jesu, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills the breast.

-Caswall, Edward
  Hymns and Poems,'Jesu, the Very Thought of  Thee' (a translation from12c Latin, often attributed to St Bernard).

Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

-Congreve,William
  Almeria to Leonora. The Mourning Bride, act1, sc.1.

O fat white woman whom nobody loves, Why do you walk through the fields in gloves, When the grass is soft as the breast of doves And shivering-sweet to the touch? Oh why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? See Chesterton 213:99.

-Cornford, Frances ne¤  e Darwin
  'To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train'.

Our colonel comes from Brian's race, His wounds are in his breast and face.

-Davis,Thomas Osborne
  The Spirit of the Nation,'Clare's Dragoons'.

There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^9  Oliver Twist, ch.10.

   And as the moon rose higher the unessential houses begantomelt awayuntilgradually Ibecameaware ofthe old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyesöa fresh, green breast of the new world† For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

-Fitzgerald, F(rancis) Scott Key
  The Great Gatsby, ch.9.

What use the green river, the gold place, if time and death pinned human in the pocket of my land not rest from taking underground the green all-willowed and white rose and bean flower and morning-mist picnic of song in pepper-pot breast of thrush?

-Frame,Janet Paterson also known as Jean PatersonFrame
Owls Do Cry, pt.1, ch.4.

The silver swan, who living had no note, When death approached, unlocked her silent throat; Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more: 'Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes; More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.'

-Gibbons, Orlando
  TheFirst Set of Madrigals and Motets of Five Parts,'The Silver Swan'.

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood isrunning money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

-Ginsberg, Allen
  Howl and Other Poems,'Howl, II'.

   I would that with sleepy, soft embraces The sea would fold meöwould find me rest In luminous shades of her secret places, In depths where her marvels are manifest; So the earth beneath her should not discover My hidden couchönor the heaven above herö As a strong love shielding a weary lover, I would have her shield me with shining breast.

-Gordon, Adam Lindsay
'The Swimmer', stanza 5, collected in Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes (1870).

In buskined measures move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.

-Gray,Thomas
  The Bard.  A Pindaric Ode, l.128^30.

Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to My breast.

-Herbert, George
'The Pulley', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

She stood breast high amid the corn, Clasped by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won.

-Honorius of Autun
  'Ruth'.

They call her a young country, but they lie: She is the last of lands, the emptiest, A woman beyond her change of life, a breast Still tender but within the womb is dry.

-Hope, A(lec) D(erwent)
'Australia', in Collected Poems1930^1970 (1972).

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins
  'God's Grandeur'.

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
  Solstice,'Love the Wild Swan'.