A rainbow and a cuckoo’s song

“A rainbow and a cuckoo’s song
May never come together again;
May never come
This side the tomb.”

—W.H. Davies, A Great Time, Bird of Paradise, 1914.

It was the Rainbow gave thee birth

“It was the Rainbow gave thee birth,
And left thee all her lovely hues.”

—W.H. Davies, Kingfisher, Farewell to Poesy, 1910.

You see

“You see, but you do not observe.”

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scandal in Bohemia, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892.

Blue Gardens

“In his blue gardens, men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925.

the serpent-haunted sea

“The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea.”

—James Elroy Flecker, Gates of Damascus, Golden Journey to Samarkand, 1913.

the lovely moon

“It was the lovely moon—she lifted
slowly her white brow among
Bronze cloud-waves that ebbed and drifted
Faintly, faintlier afar.”

—John Freeman, It Was the Lovely Moon, Stone Trees, 1916.

the starry dynamo

“angleheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”

—Allen Ginsberg, Howl, 1956.

Colour and Warmth and Light

“And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light
And a striving evermore for these;”

—Julian Grenfell, Into Battle, 1915.

the Yellow God

“There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There’s a little marble cross below the town,
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.”

—J. Milton Hayes, The Green Eye of the Yellow God, 1911.

I stared into the sky

“I stood upon that silent hill
And stared into the sky until
My eyes were blind with stars and still
I stared into the sky.”

—Ralph Hodgson, Song of Honour, Poems, 1917.