Blue Ensign Flag

Famous quotes containing the words blue, ensign and/or flag:

    At twelve, the disintegration of afternoon
    Began, the return to phantomerei, if not
    To phantoms. Till then, it had been the other way:
    One imagined the violet trees but the trees stood green,
    At twelve, as green as ever they would be.
    The sky was blue beyond the vaultiest phrase.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    How oft when men are at the point of death
    Have they been merry! which their keepers call
    A lightning before death: O, how may I
    Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!
    Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
    Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
    Thou art not conquered; beauty’s ensign yet
    Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
    And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    —Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence
    Of the unbroken ice. I stand here,
    The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare
    At the North Pole. . .
    And now what? Why, go back.

    Turn as I please, my step is to the south.
    Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)