Olive Wreath

Famous quotes containing the words olive and/or wreath:

    Even when seen from near, the olive shows
    A hue of far away. Perhaps for this
    The dove brought olive back, a tree which grows
    Unearthly pale, which ever dims and dries,
    And whose great thirst, exceeding all excess,
    Teaches the South it is not paradise.
    Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)

    But seldom the laurel wreath is seen
    Unmixed with pensive pansies dark;
    There’s a light and a shadow on every man
    Who at last attains his lifted mark—
    Nursing through night the ethereal spark.
    Elate he never can be;
    He feels that spirits which glad had hailed his worth,
    Sleep in oblivion.—The shark
    Glides white through the phosphorus sea.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)