A garland of quotations LXXX

Culled from the finest shameless shills in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday

(Perhaps this is cheating, but I thought, to celebrate last week’s release of my latest and potentially last book, I would weave a garland of quotations plucked from that very volume (which is, let me make clear, not exclusively made up of quotations, but also not, you know, devoid of quotation). The book is funny and weird and full of myths and legends and technically for kids but I don’t know how they let me put some of this stuff in. Anyway, thus we see art degraded by commerce, and next week I will return to pure art for the sake of art, as these garlands were always meant to be.)

Rush on the fight, to harps preferring swords,
And everlasting deeds to burning words!
•Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822).

I dried my tears & armd my fears,
With ten thousand shields and spears.
•Blake, Songs of Experience (1794).

Lift like flame of Death thy shield,
And thy sword like meteor wield.
Cut down thy foe!
•George Harvey, Fingal (1814).

Richard raught him with a bar of brass
That he caught at the gate.
He broke his legs, he cried “alas”
And fell all check-mate.
•Sowdone of Babylone (ca. 1400).

Some lost legs and some lost arms,
And some did lose their blood,
But Robin Hood hee took up his noble bow,
And is gone to the merry green wood.
•Child No. 139 (coll. 1860).

Be bolde, Be bolde, and everywhere, Be bolde.
•Spenser, Faerie Queene (1596).

This is the way to live—that when thou diest
No one believes that thou art really dead.
•Richard Le Gallienne, Odes from the Dizan of Hafiz (1903).

You know but little of the world…since you are ignorant of what commonly occurs in knight-errantry.
•Cervantes, Don Quixote (1612).

Come squire and dwarf, the Sun grows towards his set,
And we have many more adventures yet.
•Beaumont, Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607).