I can understand an elegy over a broken pitcher when you behold the shards for the first time; but to go on with the same pathos over a much mended pitcher, looks more like a comic opera.

Chantel, more rueful than either, stared down at a bleeding hand, which held two shards of steel.

The atmosphere of the launching pad rushed out, hurling the shards of the airlock door into space.

Another house would lack a roof to it, and the tidy tiles that had made the roof were now red and yellow rubbish, piled like broken shards outside a potter's door.

The reader ceased; the storm beat hard; 'Twas day, but the office-gas was lit; Nature retained her sulking-fit, In her hand the shard.

Finally, despairing of disposing of it in any other way, the hero, strong in death, broke Durandana in his powerful hands and threw the shards away.