“And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.”
Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene
Canto 7, stanza 30
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VII
“The sword sung on the barren heath,
The sickle in the fruitful field;
The sword he sung a song of death,
But could not make the sickle yield.”
The Sword Sung
1790s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1791-1792)
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Do you have more details about the quote "The sword sung on the barren heath,
The sickle in the fruitful field;
The sword he sung a song of death,
But could n…" by William Blake?
William Blake249
English Romantic poet and artist 1757–1827Related quotes
“The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.”
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist
“You have sung this song as if it had been hit by a bus.”
Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist
Zaśpiewałaś tą piosenkę, jakby uderzył w nią autobus.
To Idol contestants
“I have sung my songs to my own tunes”
Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) American poet
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”
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery
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.”
Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer
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.