"Asphodel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confessed that the Earl's courtship of Elizabeth was anything at that moment but a gentle dalliance. In those thorny regions of finance were no beds of asphodel or amaranthine bowers. There was no talk but of troopers, saltpetre, and sulphur, of books of assurance, and bills of exchange; and the aspect of Elizabeth, when the budget was under discussion, must effectually have neutralized for the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... panther, dolphin, serpent, and ass were sacred to this god. His favourite plants were the vine, ivy, laurel, and asphodel. His sacrifices consisted of goats, probably on account of their ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... toward the East I turn, Waiting for dawn of day;— And chanting sea, and asphodel and star ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... are just content to be a critic and a disputer. It's your surroundings. It's your sordid realities. It's that Practicality at your elbow. You ought never to see a newspaper. You ought never to have an American come within ten miles of you. You ought to live on bowls of milk drunk in valleys of asphodel." ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... not that there a woman lay, Nor Ruth what God desired of her could tell; Fresh rose the perfume of the asphodel, And tender breathed ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... Asphodel scents did Gilgal's breezes bring— Through nuptial shadows, questionless, full fast The angels sped, for momently there passed A something blue which seemed ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... ones, with the bold wide-eyed gaze you see in the Roman peasant-girls, scarlet poppies glowing in a sunshine of their own, like flames in the heart of a furnace, vetches bright azure and pale yellow, dark blue hyacinths, pink geraniums, and "moonlit spires of asphodel," suggestive of the flowery fields of the immortals. My footsteps along the dusty road continually disturbed serpents that wriggled away in long ripples of motion among the tall spears of the grass; while green and golden lizards, sunning themselves on the hot stones, disappeared ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... and forbore not glance or toy Of amorous intent; well understood Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire. Her hand he seised; and to a shady bank, Thick over-head with verdant roof imbowered, He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch, Pansies, and violets, and asphodel, And hyacinth; Earth's freshest softest lap. There they their fill of love and love's disport Took largely, of their mutual guilt the seal, The solace of their sin; till dewy sleep Oppressed them, wearied with their amorous play, Soon as the force of that fallacious fruit, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... the world was at war. By a happy chance I laid hold of a copy of Aliens, sent previously to a naval relative serving on the same station. Up and down the AEgean Sea, past fields of mines and fields of asphodel, past many an isle familiar in happier days to me, I took my book and my new convictions about human folly. It was a slow business, for it so chanced that my own contribution to the war involved long hours. But ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... Orgia, or sacred rites of Bacchus, the customary sacrifice to be offered, because it fed on vines, was the goat. The vine, ivy, laurel, asphodel, the dolphin, lynx, tiger, and ass were all sacred to Bacchus. The acceptable sacrifice to Venus was a dove; Jupiter, a bull; an ox of five years old, ram or boar pig to Neptune; and Diana, a stag. At the inception ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... poet hath hymned The writhing maid, lithe-limbed, Quivering on amaranthine asphodel, How can he paint her woes, Knowing, as well he knows, That all can be set right ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... pasture. Here are cress, blue violets, potentilla, and, in the damp of the willow fence-rows, white false asphodels. I am sure we make too free use of this word false in naming plants—false mallow, false lupine, and the like. The asphodel is at least no falsifier, but a true lily by all the heaven-set marks, though small of flower and run mostly to leaves, and should have a name that gives it credit for growing up in such celestial semblance. Native to the mesa meadows is a pale iris, gardens of it acres ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... pearled wrists, and took her in, Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall; Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head, And gave her to his daughters to imbathe In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel, And through the porch and inlet of each sense Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived, 840 And underwent a quick immortal change, Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve Visits the herds along the twilight meadows, ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... Merrily ring the luncheon bell! Merrily ring the luncheon bell! Here in meadow of asphodel, Feast we body and mind as well, Merrily ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan |
