“creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire:
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moones sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The flags are natures newly found.
Rifles grow sharper on the sight.
There is a rumble of autumnal marching,
From which no soft sleeve relieves us.
Fate is the present desperado.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)