Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeleine's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory like a saint: She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven.

-Keats,John
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'The Eve of St.  Agnes', stanza 25.

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind, To war and arms I fly.

-Lovelace, Richard
  Lucasta,'To Lucasta, Going to the Wars'.

He resolved to lead Britain and her fading empire in one last great struggle†to arm the nation, not only with weapons but also with the mace of honor, creating in every English breast a soul beneath the ribs of death. 544

-Manchester,William Raymond
  Of  Winston Churchill. The Last Lion.

Why haven't Igot a real'home'öa real lifeöwhyhaven't Igot a Chinesenurse with green trousers and two babies who rush at me and clasp my knees? I'm not a girlöI'm a woman. I want things†all this love and joy that fights for outletöand all this life drying up, like milk in an old breast.

-Beauchamp
  Letter to  John Middleton Murry, 23 Mar.

My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow, An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze. Two hundred to adore each breast: But thirty thousand to the rest. An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For Lady you deserve this state; Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near: And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.

-Marvell, Andrew
c.1650^1652  'To His Coy Mistress' (published1681).

And now, when I have summed up all my store, Thinking (so I myself deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas! I find the serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast, About the flowers disguised does fold With wreaths of fame and interest.

-Marvell, Andrew
c.1650^1652  'The Coronet' (published1681).

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where with her best nurse contemplation She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings That in the various bustle of resort Were all too ruffl'd, and sometimes impair'd. He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i'the centre, and enjoy bright day, But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the midday sun; Himself is his own dungeon.

-Milton,John
  Comus,  A Mask, l.372^83.

Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble.

-Milton,John
Of Samson's heroic death. Samson  Agonistes, l.1721^4.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave the lustre of midday to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

-Moore, Clement
  The Night Before Christmas.

Oh happy state! when souls each other draw, When love is liberty, and nature, law: All then is full, possessing, and possessed, No craving void left aching in the breast.

-Pope, Alexander
  'Eloisa to Abelard'.

In each she marks her image full exprest, But chief, inTibbald's monster-breeding breast; Sees Gods with Daemons in strange league ingage, And earth, and heav'n, and hell her battles wage.

-Pope, Alexander
  The Dunciad, bk.1, l.105^8.

He looks to me to be in heaven, that manwho sits across from you and listensnear you toyour soft speaking, your laughing lovely: that, I vow, makes the heart leap in my breast; for watching you a moment, speech fails me, my tongue is paralysed, at once a light fire runs beneath my skin, my eyes are blinded, and my ears drumming, the sweat pours down me, and Ishake all over, sallower than grass: I feel as if I'm not far off dying.

-Sappho   7c
D L Page (ed) Lyrica Graeca Selecta (1968), no.199 (translated by M L West).

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beautyand love lay bare.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'The Sensitive Plant', pt.1, l.29^32.

Love, that doth reign and live within my thought, And built his seat within my captive breast, Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought, Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.

-Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of
  'Love, that doth reign'.

London, hast thou accused me Of breach of laws, the root of strife? Within whose breast did boil to see, So fervent hot, thy dissolute life, That even the hate of sins that grow Within thy wicked walls so rife, For to break forth did convert so That terror could it not repress.

-Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of
  'London, hast thou accused me'.

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

-Tennyson
  Poems,'Locksley Hall', l.17^20.

   Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

-Tennyson
  The Princess, pt.3, added song, stanzas1^2.

The sun hums down through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of her heart and buzzes in the honey there and couches and kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast.

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  Under MilkWood.

King of comforts, King of life, Thou hast cheered me, And when fears and doubts were rife, Thou hast cleared me. Not a hook in all my breast But thou fill'st it, Not a thought in all my rest But thou kill'st it. Wherefore with my utmost strength I will praise thee, And as thou giv'st line, and length, I will raise thee.

-Vaughan, Henry
  Silex Scintillans,'Praise'.

For all the startled scaly tribes that slink Into his coverts, and each fearless link Of dancing insects forged upon his breast.

-Wordsworth,William
  The River Duddon, no.28,'Journey Renewed', l.6^8.