What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps and points to yonder glade?
_To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady_. A. POPE.
What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew,
Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?
_Elegy on the Lady Jane Pawlet_. B. JONSON.
By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.
_King Richard III., Act v. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
MACBETH. Thou canst not say I did it; never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
* * * * *
LADY MACBETH. O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear;
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan.
MACBETH. Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! how
say you?
* * * * *
The times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.
* * * * *
Avaunt! and quit my sight. Let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes,
Which thou dost glare with!
* * * * *
Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.