Which cometh of this, thou art vengeance strait-laced.
Where am I biggest, wife?” “In the waste,” quoth she,
“For all is waste in you, as far as I see.”
The same play on the word occurs subsequently in Shirley’s comedy of The Wedding, 1629:—
He is a great man indeed; something given to the waist, for he lives within no reasonable compass.
Moore, in his song Dear Harp of my Country, sings,—
If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover
Have throbbed at our lay, ’tis thy glory alone;
I was but as the wind passing heedlessly over,