“With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.”

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 217.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "With spots quadrangular of diamond form, Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, And spades, the emblems of unti…" by William Cowper?
William Cowper photo
William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800

Related quotes

“Winter wields only the spades, Summer brandishes
Hot, black clubs, Spring shower hearts about and Autumn shows
A fall of diamonds in our climate of extremes”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

Extract from 'Powers of Thirteen'(1983)
Poetry Quotes

Menander photo

“I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.”

Menander (-342–-291 BC) Athenian playwright of New Comedy

Unidentified fragment 545 K (K = T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, 3 vols. (Leipzig 1880/8)), as translated in ‪Menander: The Principal Fragments‬‎ (1921) by Francis Greenleaf Allinson.

“We believe that failing to call a spade a spade is not scientific.”

Source: Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958), p. 50

Paul Blobel photo
Plutarch photo

“These Macedonians," said he, "are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

39 Philip
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Christopher Pitt photo
Patañjali photo

“Asanas bring perfection in body, beauty in form,grace, strength, compactness, and the harness and brilliance of a diamond.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Patanjali, in “The Little Red Book of Yoga Wisdom”, p. 135.

Bernice King photo
Lynne Truss photo

“If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.”

Lynne Truss (1955) British writer

Source: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Related topics