Lilies

Famous quotes containing the word lilies:

    I have passed down the river before sunrise on a summer morning, between fields of lilies still shut in sleep; and when, at length, the flakes of sunlight from over the bank fell on the surface of the water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed to flash open before me, as I floated along, like the unfolding of a banner, so sensible is this flower to the influence of the sun’s rays.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    ... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words of the Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint’s picture.
    Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    What was he doing, the great god Pan,
    Down in the reeds by the river?
    Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
    Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
    And breaking the golden lilies afloat
    With the dragon-fly on the river.
    Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)