“Many a bard's untimely death
Lends unto his verses breath”

“The Bards also, who by the praises of their verse transmit to distant ages the fame of heroes slain in battle, poured forth at ease their lays in abundance.”
Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremptas Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis aevum, Plurima securi fudistis carmina, Bardi.

“But, oh! fell death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early.”

“Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
And lende me leave to come unto my love?

- Epithalamion”

“There was silence deep as death,
And the boldest held his breath,
For a time.”

“All Christ's public acts were consecrated by prayer, — His baptism, His transfiguration, His miracles, His agony, His death. He breathed away His spirit in prayer. " His last breath," says Philip Henry, "was praying breath."”

“Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.”

“Death cannot come
To him untimely who is fit to die;
The less of this cold world, the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality.”

“The basic line in any good verse is cadenced… building it around the natural breath structures of speech.”

“There is a natural physiological tendency to pronounce in one breath successive groups of rhythmic feet, and the rhythmic content in the average length of breathing can only be called a verse.”