Find you without excuse,
And find a hare without a muse. [ Proverb ]

'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse
How grows in Paradise our store. [ Keble ]

Then, rising with Aurora's light,
The muse invoked, sit down to write;
Blot out, correct, insert, refine.
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when invention fails.
To scratch your head and bite your nails. [ Swift ]

Wisdom's path is steep; but, gained the height,
The Muse's gifts will fill you with delight. [ Onestes ]

Within a bony, labyrinthean cave,
Reached by the pulse of the aerial wave,
This sibyl, sweet, and mystic sense is found,
Muse, that presides over all the powers of sound. [ Abraham Coles ]

Rhyme without melody and sense is an abortion of the muse. [ Iscanus ]

A greater succession of events presents itself to my muse. [ Virgil ]

Memory is a Muse in herself; or rather the mother of the Muses. [ ? ]

I honor health as the first muse, and sleep as the first condition. [ Emerson ]

Oh for a muse of fire that would ascend the highest heaven of invention! [ William Shakespeare ]

Sweet the young muse with love intense. Which smiles over sleeping innocence. [ Smart ]

A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse, few men can succeed in life, none be contented. [ Beaconsfield ]