> as lemmas

eOE King Ælfred tr. Boethius De Consol. Philos. (Otho) xi .24 Ic wat ðæt monegum men þuhte þæt he wære to hefonum [L. coelo] ahæfen gif he ænigne dæl hæfde þara þinra gesælða þe þu nu giet hæfst.

c1400 (c1378) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. x. 300 (MED) If heuene be on þis erthe..It is in cloistere or in scole.

c1405 (c1395) G. Chaucer Merchant's Tale (Hengwrt) (1978) l. 403 I shal han myn heuene in erthe heere.

1546 J. Heywood Dialogue Prouerbes Eng. Tongue i. ix. sig. E ^v They that be in hell, wene there is none other heuen.

1600 W. Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream ii. i. 243 Ile follow thee and make a heauen of hell. View more context for this quotation

1660 Speech House of Commons 14 Nov. in W. Cobbett Parl. Hist. (1808) IV. 145 England, that was formerly the heaven, would be now the hell for women.

1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost i. 255 The mind is its own place, and in it self Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. View more context for this quotation

1725 W. Broome in A. Pope et al. tr. Homer Odyssey II. vi. 22 A heav'n of charms divine Nausicaa lay.

1782 F. Burney Cecilia I. iii. iv. 51 Such a shop as that..would be quite a heaven upon earth to me.

1810 W. Scott Lady of Lake ii. 55 Ere Douglasses, to ruin driven, Were exiled from their native heaven.

1831 T. Carlyle Niebelungenlied in Crit. & Misc. Ess. (1872) III. 142 Here for eleven days..there is a true heaven-on-earth.

1898 Argosy June 528 I verily believe thinking himself in heaven for the time being.

1940 H. G. Wells Babes in Darkling Wood ii. iii. 198 They thought strikes and hunger marches the quintessence of politics and Soviet Russia heaven on earth.

1967 H. W. Sutherland Magnie vii. 94 They were queer, the Shelties, came from nothing... England was heaven to them.

2000 Guardian 17 Mar. ii. 8/1 A designer emporium that sells nothing but perfume? Mais oui: behind the plain-looking Paris shopfront on the right lies heaven for scentophiles.