sunbeams and starbeams

“Sunbeams and starbeams, and all coloured things,
All forms and all similitudes began;
And death, the shadow cast by life’s wide wings,
And God, the shade cast by the soul of man.”

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, from Genesis, 1871.

moonlight from tree to tree

“I sit on a purple bed,
Outside, the wall is red,
Thereby the apple hangs,
And the wasp, caught by the fangs, . . .

Gold wings across the sea!
Moonlight from tree to tree,
Sweet hair laid on my knee,
O, sweet knight, come to me!”

—William Morris, from Golden Wings, 1858.

a gold and blue casket

“‘In a gold and blue casket she keeps all my tears,
But my eyes are no longer blue, as in old years;

‘Yea, they grow grey with time, grow small and dry,
I am so feeble now, would I might die.’”

—William Morris, from The Blue Closet, 1858.

the blue closet

“Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen,
Two damozels wearing purple and green,
Four lone ladies dwelling here
From day to day and year to year; . . .”

—William Morris, from The Blue Closet, 1858.

launcelot’s red-golden hair

“‘And every morn I scarce could pray at all,
For Launcelot’s red-golden hair would play,
Instead of sunlight, on the painted wall. . . ’”

—William Morris, from King Arthur’s Tomb, 1858.

purple thyme and the purple clover

“Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover
Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme and the purple clover
Sleeping at last.”

—Christina Georgina Rossetti, from Sleeping at Last, 1896.

silver fleurs-de-lys

“Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.”

—Christina Georgina Rossetti, from A Birthday, 1862.

green through and through

Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark. They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo. . . .
Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better. They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, they say.
—Chris Hogg, reporting for BBC News from Hong Kong, 12 January 2006. Thank you, Apostropher, for your ace aesthetic eye!

dewlight off the rose

“You have seen the huntress moon
Radiantly facing dawn,
Dusky meads between them strewn
Glimmering like downy awn:
Argent Westward glows the hunt,
East the blush about to climb;
One another fair they front,
Transient, yet outshine the time;
Even as dewlight off the rose
In the mind a jewel sows.”

—George Meredith, from The Woods of Westermain, 1883.

delighted eyes

“Quick and far as Colour flies
Taking the delighted eyes,
You of any well that springs
May unfold the heaven of things.”

—George Meredith, from The Woods of Westermain, 1883.