Ancient Silk Road

Famous quotes containing the words ancient, silk and/or road:

    “Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
    In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
    An ancestor was rector there
    Long years ago, a church stands near,
    By the road an ancient cross.
    No marble, no conventional phrase;
    On limestone quarried near the spot
    By his command these words are cut:
    Cast a cold eye
    On life, on death.
    Horseman pass by!”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “Why silk is soft and the stone wounds
    The child shall question all his days,
    Why night-time rain and the breast’s blood
    Both quench his thirst he’ll have a black reply.”
    —Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

    “Dear common flower, that grow’st beside the way,
    Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
    First pledge of blithesome May,
    Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
    Hight-hearted buccaneers, o’erjoyed that they
    An Eldorado in the grass have found,
    Which not the rich earth’s ample round
    May match in wealth—thou art more dear to me
    Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.”
    —James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)