The Sword Sung
1790s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1791-1792)
“And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.”
Canto 7, stanza 30
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VII
“The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.”
“You have sung this song as if it had been hit by a bus.”
Zaśpiewałaś tą piosenkę, jakby uderzył w nią autobus.
To Idol contestants
“I have sung my songs to my own tunes”
What It Means to Be a Poet in America (1926)
Context: I have sung my songs to my own tunes for most of the English departments of the state universities of the forty-eight states of the nation, and the English departments of other universities and colleges; and I have been recalled to many of these seven and eight times, which matters are a source of great pride to me. And I have brought out three books where the songs were based on my own pen-and-ink pictures.
“Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue”
My Triumph, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Context: Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.
Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.
“Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung!”
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Lenore", st. 1 (1831).
“A good song can only do good, and I am proud of the songs I have sung.”
Statement to the court prior to his sentencing for contempt of Congress (1961); also quoted on NPR: Weekend Edition (2 July 2005)
Context: A good song can only do good, and I am proud of the songs I have sung. I hope to be able to continue singing these songs for all who want to listen, Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
