Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Water-Lily (Nymphæa)
What loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes,
Can the wild water-lily restore.
Campbell—Field Flowers.
The slender water-lily
Peeps dreamingly out of the lake;
The moon, oppress’d with love’s sorrow,
Looks tenderly down for her sake.
Heine—Book of Songs. New Spring. No. 15. St. 1.
Those virgin lilies, all the night
Bathing their beauties in the lake,
That they may rise more fresh and bright,
When their beloved sun’s awake.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Paradise and the Peri.
Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by,
And around them the soft stream did glide and dance
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.
Shelley—The Sensitive Plant. Pt. I.
The water-lily starts and slides
Upon the level in little puffs of wind,
Tho’ anchor’d to the bottom.
Tennyson—The Princess. IV. L. 236.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake;
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom, and be lost in me.
Tennyson—The Princess. VII. L. 171.
Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,
In sweetness, not in music, dying.
Whittier—The Maids of Attitash.
Rapaciously we gathered flowery spoils
From land and water; lilies of each hue,—
Golden and white, that float upon the waves,
And court the wind.
Wordsworth—The Excursion. Bk. IX. L. 540.