lilies quotes

   My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Song of Solomon 2:16.

   Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you,That even Solomon in all hisglory was not arrayed like one of these.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew 6:26^9.

Ye Lilies male! think (as your tea you sip, While theTown small-talk flows from lip to lip; Intrigues half-gathered, conversation-scraps, Kitchen-cabals, and nursery-mishaps), If the vast world may not some scene produce, Some state where your small talents might have use.

- George Crabbe
  The Borough, letter 3,'The Vicar', l.69^74.

And all my endeavours are unlucky explorers come back, abandoning the expedition; the specimens, the lilies of ambition still spring in their climate, still unpicked; but time, time is all I lacked to find them, as the great collectors before me.

- Gavin Douglas
  'On a Return from Egypt,1943^44' (published1946).

I have forgot much,Cynara! Gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses, riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind; But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long: I have been faithful to thee,Cynara! in my fashion.

- Ernest Dowson
  Verses,'Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae'.

We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, We Poets of the proud old lineage Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest.

-James Elroy Flecker
  'The Golden  Journey to Samarkand', epilogue.

I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail And a few lilies blow And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins
  'Heaven-Haven'.

Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within.

- Andrew Marvell
c.1650^1652  'The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn' (published1681)

I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness.

- Andrew Marvell
c.1650^1652  'The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn' (published1681).

The blessed damozel leaned out From the gold bar of Heaven; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven.

- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
  Poems,'The Blessed Damozel', stanza1.

   Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

-John Ruskin
^3  The Stones ofVenice, vol.i, ch.2.

Change in a trice The lilies and languors of virtue For the raptures and roses of vice.

- Algernon Charles Swinburne
  Poems and Ballads,'Dolores', stanza 9.