“
Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
The open sky sits upon our senses like a sapphire crown - the Air is our robe of state - the Earth is our throne, and the Sea a mighty minstrel playing before it.
”
”
John Keats
“
Sapphire sky, diamond clouds, emerald leaves, ruby cherries. The magic with which Nell understands overwhelms me at times.
”
”
Ann Patchett (Tom Lake)
“
maybe we try too hard to be remembered, waking to the glowing yellow disc in ignorance, swearing that today will be the day, today we will make
something of our lives. what if we are so busy searching for worth that we miss the sapphire sky and cackling blackbird. what else is missing?
maybe our steps are too straight and our paths too narrow and not overlapping. maybe when they overlap someone in another country lights a candle, a couple
resolves their argument, a young man puts down his silver gun and walks away.
”
”
Naomi Shihab Nye (Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25)
“
Somewhere there are gardens where peacocks sing like nightingales, somewhere there are caravans of separated lovers traveling to meet each other; there are ruby fires on distant mountains, and blue comets that come in spring like sapphires in the black sky. If this is not so, meet me in the shameful yard, and we will plant a gallows tree, and swing like sad pendulums, never once touching.
”
”
K.J. Bishop (The Etched City)
“
If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and in its place is a girl.
Her hair and lashes are painted a shifting silver, and a scar crosses one side of her face. She is dressed in Sealand silk and a necklace of sapphire . Some say that, once upon a time, she had a prince, a father, a society of friends. Others say that she was once a wicked queen ,a worker of illusions, a girl who brought darkness across the lands. Stilll others say that she once had a sister, and that she loved her dearly. Perhaps all of these are true.
She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen.
These are only rumour,of course, and make little more than a story to tell round a fire. But it is told. And thus they live on.
—“The Midnight Star,” a folktale
”
”
Marie Lu (The Midnight Star (The Young Elites, #3))
“
When we kissed, the skies had never appeared more heavenly, nor the seas a more brilliant shade of sapphire blue.
”
”
Jennifer Silverwood (Stay)
“
There was the deep sky blue of the amethyst with its velvety sheen, the shine of the vivid red ruby and the rich purple of the sapphire tinted with rose flashes.
”
”
Jasper Cooper (Candara's Gift (The Kingdom of Gems, #1))
“
Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn flowers in the flowerbeds near the house had fallen asleep until morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens, the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars... Alyosha stood gazing and suddenly, as if he had been cut down, threw himself to the earth.
He did not know why he was embracing it, he did not try to understand why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss all of it, but he was kissing it, weeping, sobbing, and watering it with his tears, and he vowed ecstatically to love it, to love it unto ages of ages. "Water the earth with the tears of your joy, and love those tears...," rang in his soul. What was he weeping for? Oh, in his rapture he wept even for the stars that shone on him from the abyss, and "he was not ashamed of this ecstasy." It was as if threads from all those innumerable worlds of God all came together in his soul, and it was trembling all over, "touching other worlds." He wanted to forgive everyone and for everything, and to ask forgiveness, oh, not for himself! but for all and for everything, "as others are asking for me," rang again in his soul. But with each moment he felt clearly and almost tangibly something as firm and immovable as this heavenly vault descend into his soul. Some sort of idea, as it were, was coming to reign in his mind-now for the whole of his life and unto ages of ages. He fell to the earth a weak youth and rose up a fighter, steadfast for the rest of his life, and he knew it and felt it suddenly, in that very moment of his ecstasy. Never, never in all his life would Alyosha forget that moment. "Someone visited my soul in that hour," he would say afterwards, with firm belief in his words...
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
The sky was an eddy of molten amethyst, sapphire, and ruby, all bleeding into a final pool of onyx. I wanted to swim in it, wanted to bathe in its colours and feel the stars twinkling between my fingers.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))
“
Those piercingly beautiful blue eyes were looking down at him, stupefying him as they met his own, evoking images of sapphire jewels and a starry sky and… Good Lord, was her hair truly the shade of moonbeams?
”
”
Fenna Edgewood (Kiss Me, My Duke (Blakeley Manor, #3))
“
Djinn,” she said. “We go to review the troops. Clothe me as befits a queen.”
“Silks and satins?” he asked, eyes sparkling like sapphires. “White brocade?”
“Armor,” she said. “And flame.
”
”
Elizabeth Bear (Shattered Pillars (Eternal Sky, #2))
“
Her eyes locked on to mine. I had thought they would be green, like the cold reptilian flesh that wriggled from her scalp. But they were blue: a cloudless sky, a calm ocean. An ever-replenishing well of sorrow; a sapphire melancholy of surprising gentleness.
”
”
Jennifer Saint (Ariadne)
“
SAPPHIRE AND DIAMONDS
When I look up at Heaven,
I see the souls of those who died
Beaming down at me,
Wanting to scream: “I'm still alive!”,
Wishing to scribble across the sapphire sky -
Letters to their loved ones,
But a million dark oceans stand between us,
Between those who passed and the living,
Between those of us still stuck below,
And those who have crossed over the threshold of time -
Where what seems like eternity
Is really only a few minutes.
So you see, there is no reason to weep over the shining ones -
For even though the space that separates us is limitless,
The wall of time that divides us is only paper-thin.
And one day, we shall all reunite with them,
When our souls are released like fish
Back into the vast shimmering sea
To shine together like
Glittering diamonds.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
One thing he shared with the singing bird was a love of rain and especially of storms. He always felt a deep thrill of awe when the pale sapphire cloaks of sky were flung aside and dark raging heavens roared and plunged and cast fire and water and ice upon the earth. Something
”
”
Jonathan Renshaw (Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening, #1))
“
Day vivified the city, and we found a rogue path through the dunes down to the beach, the foam edge of teal sea. The whole sky celestial sapphire.
”
”
Aspen Matis (Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir)
“
I drifted off to sleep only at daybreak when the sky turned sapphire.
”
”
Sohn Won-Pyung (Almond)
“
In the sky the stars look like the crushed dust of jewels—powdered ruby and sapphire and diamond.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2))
“
pinned here, find recurring dreams, conspiracy theories, their answer when i asked them to take me to the worst day of their life and describe the color of the sky: sapphire paint and human hair and the rosetta stone. can i worship what's mine? this is the problem. i move onto folding moments into catacombs, as if there are any noble or artistic ways to display the curse of yearning.
”
”
Savannah Brown (Sweetdark)
“
Look at the sky. Does its sapphire hue dim when you take a single breath? Are the stars drawn closer when you weep? The sky cannot be diminished so. Thus it is with the spirit: it is a thing without beginning or end.
”
”
Elaine Cunningham (Realms of the Arcane (Forgotten Realms: Anthologies, #5))
“
Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong hair growth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white, still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet wine grapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.
”
”
James Joyce
“
The tale is told by royalty and vagabonds alike, nobles and peasants, hunters and farmers, the old and the young. The tale comes from ever corner of the world, but no matter where it is told, it is always the same story,
A boy on horseback, wandering at night, in the woods or on the plains or along the shores. The sound of a lute drifts in the evening air. Over head are the stars of a clear sky, a sheet of light so bright that he reaches up, trying to touch them. He stops and descends from his horse. Then he waits. He waits until exactly midnight, when the newest constellation in the sky blinks into existence.
If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and it its place is a girl.
Her hair and lashes are painted a shifting silver, and a scar crosses one side of her face. She is dressed in Sealand silks and a necklace of sapphire. Some say that, once upon a time, she had a prince, a father, a society of friends. Other say that she was once a wicked queen, a worker of illusions, a girl who brought darkness across the lands. Still others say that she once had a sister, and that she loved her dearly. Perhaps all of these are true.
She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen.
These are only rumors, of course, and make little more than a story to tell around the fire. But it is told. And thus they live on.
--"The Midnight Star", a folktale
”
”
Marie Lu (The Midnight Star (The Young Elites, #3))
“
Aphrodite - She stays by the sea shore. Shining shells and soft surf sounds surround her shelter. Cythera simmers with summer, and seals swim in the sun. Songbirds circle in the sapphire sky, and sea stars sit semi-submerged in the sand.
”
”
Scott Alexander (A Modern Myth)
“
And she crawled on, do or die, in the serene weather. The sky was a miracle of purity, a miracle of azure. The sea was polished, was blue was pellucid, was sparkling like a precious stone, extending on all sides , all round to the horizon—as if the whole terrestrial globe had been one jewel, one colossal sapphire, a single gem fashioned into a planet.
”
”
Joseph Conrad (Youth, a Narrative)
“
To fill the days up of his dateless year
Flame from Queen Helen to Queen Guenevere?
For first of all the sphery signs whereby
Love severs light from darkness, and most high,
In the white front of January there glows
The rose-red sign of Helen like a rose:
And gold-eyed as the shore-flower shelterless
Whereon the sharp-breathed sea blows bitterness,
A storm-star that the seafarers of love
Strain their wind-wearied eyes for glimpses of,
Shoots keen through February's grey frost and damp
The lamplike star of Hero for a lamp;
The star that Marlowe sang into our skies
With mouth of gold, and morning in his eyes;
And in clear March across the rough blue sea
The signal sapphire of Alcyone
Makes bright the blown bross of the wind-foot year;
And shining like a sunbeam-smitten tear
Full ere it fall, the fair next sign in sight
Burns opal-wise with April-coloured light
When air is quick with song and rain and flame,
My birth-month star that in love's heaven hath name
Iseult, a light of blossom and beam and shower,
My singing sign that makes the song-tree flower;
Next like a pale and burning pearl beyond
The rose-white sphere of flower-named Rosamond
Signs the sweet head of Maytime; and for June
Flares like an angered and storm-reddening moon
Her signal sphere, whose Carthaginian pyre
Shadowed her traitor's flying sail with fire;
Next, glittering as the wine-bright jacinth-stone,
A star south-risen that first to music shone,
The keen girl-star of golden Juliet bears
Light northward to the month whose forehead wears
Her name for flower upon it, and his trees
Mix their deep English song with Veronese;
And like an awful sovereign chrysolite
Burning, the supreme fire that blinds the night,
The hot gold head of Venus kissed by Mars,
A sun-flower among small sphered flowers of stars,
The light of Cleopatra fills and burns
The hollow of heaven whence ardent August yearns;
And fixed and shining as the sister-shed
Sweet tears for Phaethon disorbed and dead,
The pale bright autumn's amber-coloured sphere,
That through September sees the saddening year
As love sees change through sorrow, hath to name
Francesca's; and the star that watches flame
The embers of the harvest overgone
Is Thisbe's, slain of love in Babylon,
Set in the golden girdle of sweet signs
A blood-bright ruby; last save one light shines
An eastern wonder of sphery chrysopras,
The star that made men mad, Angelica's;
And latest named and lordliest, with a sound
Of swords and harps in heaven that ring it round,
Last love-light and last love-song of the year's,
Gleams like a glorious emerald Guenevere's.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Tristram of Lyonesse: And Other Poems)
“
When I look up at Heaven,
I see the souls of those who died
Beaming down at me,
Wanting to scream: “I'm still alive!”,
Wishing to scribble across the sapphire sky -
Letters to their loved ones,
But a million dark oceans stand between us,
Between those who passed and the living,
Between those of us still stuck below,
And those who have crossed over the threshold of time -
Where what seems like eternity to us,
Is really only a few minutes to them.
So you see, there is no reason to weep over the shining ones -
For even though the space that separates us is limitless,
The wall of time that divides us is only paper-thin.
And one day, we shall all reunite with them,
When our souls are released like fish
Back into the vast shimmering sea
To shine together like
Glittering diamonds.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
Julius explained that the palace rooms where they stood were called Wunderkammers, or wonder rooms. Souvenirs of nature, of travels across continents and seas; jewels and skulls. A show of wealth, intellect, power.
The first room had rose-colored glass walls, with rubies and garnets and bloodred drapes of damask. Bowls of blush quartz; semiprecious stone roses running the spectrum of red down to pink, a hard, glittering garden. The vaulted ceiling, a feature of all the ten rooms Julius and Cymbeline visited, was a trompe l'oeil of a rosy sky at down, golden light edging the morning clouds.
The next room was of sapphire and sea and sky; lapis lazuli, turquoise and gold and silver. A silver mermaid lounged on the edge of a lapis lazuli bowl fashioned in the shape of an ocean. Venus stood aloft on the waves draped in pearls. There were gold fish and diamond fish and faceted sterling silver starfish. Silvered mirrors edged in silvered mirror. There were opals and aquamarines and tanzanite and amethyst. Seaweed bloomed in shades of blue-green marble. The ceiling was a dome of endless, pale blue.
A jungle room of mica and marble followed, with its rain forest of cats made from tiger's-eye, yellow topaz birds, tortoiseshell giraffes with stubby horns of spun gold. Carved clouds of smoky quartz hovered over a herd of obsidian and ivory zebras. Javelinas of spotted pony hide charged tiny, life-sized dik-diks with velvet hides, and dazzling diamond antlers mingled with miniature stuffed sable minks. Agate columns painted a medley of dark greens were strung with faceted ropes of green gold.
A room of ivory: bone, teeth, skulls, and velvet.
A room crowded with columns all sheathed in mirrors, reflecting world maps and globes and atlases inlaid with silver, platinum, and white gold; the rubies and diamonds that were sometimes set to mark the location of a city or a town of conquest resembled blood and tears.
A room dominated by a fireplace large enough to hold several people, upholstered in velvets and silks the colors of flame. Snakes of gold with orange sapphire and yellow topaz eyes coiled around the room's columns.
Statues of smiling black men in turbans offering trays of every gem imaginable-emerald, sapphire, ruby, topaz, diamond-stood at the entrance to a room upholstered in pistachio velvet, accented with malachite, called the Green Vault. Peridot wood nymphs attended to a Diana carved from a single pure crystal of quartz studded with tiny tourmalines. Jade tables, and jade lanterns. The royal jewels, blinding in their sparkling excess: crowns, tiaras, coronets, diadems, heavy ceremonial necklaces, rings, and bracelets that could span a forearm, surrounding the world's largest and most perfect green diamond.
Above it all was a night sky of painted stars, with inlaid cut crystal set in a serious of constellations.
”
”
Whitney Otto (Eight Girls Taking Pictures (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series))
“
Spring Lane burned with a mythology of chipped slates, pale wash-water blue and flaking at the seam. The summer yellow glow of an impending dawn diffused, diluted in the million-gallon sky above the tannery that occupied this low end of the ancient gradient, across the narrow street from where Phyllis and Michael stood outside the alley-mouth. The tannery’s high walls of browning brick with rusted wire mess over its high windows didn’t have the brutal aura that the building had down in the domain of the living. Rather it was softly iridescent with a sheen of fond remembrance – the cloisters of some mediaeval craft since disappeared – and had the homely perfume of manure and boiled sweets. Past the peeling wooden gates that lolled skew-whiff were yards where puddles stained a vivid tangerine harboured reflected chimney stacks, lamp black and wavering. Heaped leather shavings tinted with corrosive sapphire stood between the fire-opal pools, an azure down mounded into fantastic nests by thunderbirds to hatch their legendary fledglings. Rainspouts eaten through by time had diamond dribble beading on their chapped tin lips, and every splinter and subsided cobble sang with endless being.
Michael Warren stood entranced and Phyllis Painter stood beside him, sharing his enchantment, looking at the heart-caressing vista through his eyes. The district’s summer sounds were, in her ears, reduced to a rich stock. The lengthy intervals between the bumbling drones of distant motorcars, the twittering filigree of birdsong strung along the guttered eaves, the silver gurgle of a buried torrent echoing deep in the night-throat of a drain, all these were boiled down to a single susurrus, the hissing tingling reverberation of a cymbal struck by a soft brush. The instant jingled in the breeze.
”
”
Alan Moore (Jerusalem)
“
Look at that sky,” Livvie said. “Uh-huh,” I said. “Ain’t it marvelous?” “Yeah, it’s marvelous.” “No, chile o’ mine, you ain’t understanding what I’m telling you.” Her voice was so soft and loving, it was hard to keep my worries on my mind. “What do ya mean?” “See them stars starting to twinkle? They’s Gawd’s diamonds. You ’eah me? And the night sky turning so blue? That’s He sapphires for us. And see that streak of red across the horizon? They’s a field of rubies. Whenever you feel troubled and poor in the spirit, just go look at the sunset and all Gawd’s riches just be a-waiting for you.” “Yeah, sure, Livvie,” I said. “I ain’t lying to you, chile. I is telling you for true.
”
”
Dorothea Benton Frank (Sullivan's Island (Lowcountry Tales #1))
“
The Intelligent Questioner It is said that a beggar went to a rich man from Khurasan and asked for help. He heard him say to his servant, "O Gold, say to Gem, to say to Jewel, to say to Sapphire, to say to this beggar that we do not have anything." The beggar raised his hands to the sky and said, "O my Lord, say to Jibril, to say to Israfil, to say to Mikail, to say 'Izrail to take the soul of this miser.
”
”
Abdul Malik Mujahid (Gems & Jewels)
“
I Saw Thee Weep
(From "Hebrew Melodies")
I saw thee weep – the big bright tear
Came o’er that eye of blue;
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew:
I see thee smile – the sapphire’s blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;
It could not match the living rays
That filled that glance of thine.
As clouds from yonder sun receive
A deep and mellow dye,
Which scarce the shade of coming eve
Can banish from the sky,
Those smiles unto the moodiest mind
Their own pure joy impart;
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
That lightens o’er the heart.
”
”
Lord Byron
“
Don't let us discuss anything solemnly. I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood. Don't degrade me into the position of giving you useful information. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Through the parted curtains of the window I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her. The sky is a hard hollow sapphire. Let us go out into the night.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Critic As Artist: With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything (Green Integer))
“
Look at that sky,” Livvie said. “Uh-huh,” I said. “Ain’t it marvelous?” “Yeah, it’s marvelous.” “No, chile o’ mine, you ain’t understanding what I’m telling you.” Her voice was so soft and loving, it was hard to keep my worries on my mind. “What do ya mean?” “See them stars starting to twinkle? They’s Gawd’s diamonds. You ’eah me? And the night sky turning so blue? That’s He sapphires for us. And see that streak of red across the horizon? They’s a field of rubies. Whenever you feel troubled and poor in the spirit, just go look at the sunset and all Gawd’s riches just be a-waiting for you.” “Yeah, sure, Livvie,” I said. “I ain’t lying to you, chile. I is telling you for true.” I looked at the sky and it was full of riches,
”
”
Dorothea Benton Frank (Sullivan's Island (Lowcountry Tales #1))
“
They [mountains] are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight—that is what it is. Now think: out of that caldron, where all the bubbles would be as big as the Alps if it could get room for its boiling, certain bubbles have bubbled out and escaped—up and away, and there they stand in the cool, cold sky—mountains. Think of the change, and you will no more wonder that there should be something awful about the very look of a mountain: from the darkness—for where the light has nothing to shine upon, it is much the same as darkness—from the heat, from the endless tumult of boiling unrest—up, with a sudden heavenward shoot, into the wind, and the cold, and the starshine, and a cloak of snow that lies like ermine above the blue-green mail of the glaciers; and the great sun, their grandfather, up there in the sky; and their little old cold aunt, the moon, that comes wandering about the house at night; and everlasting stillness, except for the wind that turns the rocks and caverns into a roaring organ for the young archangels that are studying how to let out the pent-up praises of their hearts, and the molten music of the streams, rushing ever from the bosoms of the glaciers fresh-born. Think too of the change in their own substance—no longer molten and soft, heaving and glowing, but hard and shining and cold. Think of the creatures scampering over and burrowing in it, and the birds building their nests upon it, and the trees growing out of its sides, like hair to clothe it, and the lovely grass in the valleys, and the gracious flowers even at the very edge of its armour of ice, like the rich embroidery of the garment below, and the rivers galloping down the valleys in a tumult of white and green! And along with all these, think of the terrible precipices down which the traveller may fall and be lost, and the frightful gulfs of blue air cracked in the glaciers, and the dark profound lakes, covered like little arctic oceans with floating lumps of ice. All this outside the mountain! But the inside, who shall tell what lies there? Caverns of awfullest solitude, their walls miles thick, sparkling with ores of gold or silver, copper or iron, tin or mercury, studded perhaps with precious stones—perhaps a brook, with eyeless fish in it, running, running ceaseless, cold and babbling, through banks crusted with carbuncles and golden topazes, or over a gravel of which some of the stones are rubies and emeralds, perhaps diamonds and sapphires—who can tell?—and whoever can't tell is free to think—all waiting to flash, waiting for millions of ages—ever since the earth flew off from the sun, a great blot of fire, and began to cool. Then there are caverns full of water, numbing cold, fiercely hot—hotter than any boiling water. From some of these the water cannot get out, and from others it runs in channels as the blood in the body: little veins bring it down from the ice above into the great caverns of the mountain's heart, whence the arteries let it out again, gushing in pipes and clefts and ducts of all shapes and kinds, through and through its bulk, until it springs newborn to the light, and rushes down the mountain side in torrents, and down the valleys in rivers—down, down, rejoicing, to the mighty lungs of the world, that is the sea, where it is tossed in storms and cyclones, heaved up in billows, twisted in waterspouts, dashed to mist upon rocks, beaten by millions of tails, and breathed by millions of gills, whence at last, melted into vapour by the sun, it is lifted up pure into the air, and borne by the servant winds back to the mountain tops and the snow, the solid ice, and the molten stream.
”
”
George MacDonald (The Princess and Curdie (Princess Irene and Curdie, #2))
“
#The Vanity of all Worldly Things.
As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound"?
What isn't in honor to be set on high?
No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die,
And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was king of late.
What isn't in wealth great treasures to obtain?
No, that's but labor, anxious care, and pain.
He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow,
It's his today, but who's his heir tomorrow?
What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find?
More vain than all, that's but to grasp the wind.
The sensual senses for a time they pleasure,
Meanwhile the conscience rage, who shall appease?
What isn't in beauty? No that's but a snare,
They're foul enough today, that once were fair.
What is't in flow'ring youth, or manly age?
The first is prone to vice, the last to rage.
Where is it then, in wisdom, learning, arts?
Sure if on earth, it must be in those parts;
Yet these the wisest man of men did find
But vanity, vexation of the mind.
And he that know the most doth still bemoan
He knows not all that here is to be known.
What is it then? To do as stoics tell,
Nor laugh, nor weep, let things go ill or well?
Such stoics are but stocks, such teaching vain,
While man is man, he shall have ease or pain.
If not in honor, beauty, age, nor treasure,
Nor yet in learning, wisdom, youth, nor pleasure,
Where shall I climb, sound, seek, search, or find
That summum bonum which may stay my mind?
There is a path no vulture's eye hath seen,
Where lion fierce, nor lion's whelps have been,
Which leads unto that living crystal fount,
Who drinks thereof, the world doth naught account.
The depth and sea have said " 'tis not in me,"
With pearl and gold it shall not valued be.
For sapphire, onyx, topaz who would change;
It's hid from eyes of men, they count it strange.
Death and destruction the fame hath heard,
But where and what it is, from heaven's declared;
It brings to honor which shall ne'er decay,
It stores with wealth which time can't wear away.
It yieldeth pleasures far beyond conceit,
And truly beautifies without deceit.
Nor strength, nor wisdom, nor fresh youth shall fade,
Nor death shall see, but are immortal made.
This pearl of price, this tree of life, this spring,
Who is possessed of shall reign a king.
Nor change of state nor cares shall ever see,
But wear his crown unto eternity.
This satiates the soul, this stays the mind,
And all the rest, but vanity we find.
”
”
Anne Bradstreet
“
I pull into the field & cut the engine.
It's simple: I just don't know
how to love a man
gently. Tenderness
a thing to be beaten
into. Fireflies strung
through sapphired air.
You're so quiet you're almost
tomorrow.
The body was made soft
to keep us
from loneliness.
You said that
as if the car were filling
with river water.
Don't worry.
There's no water.
Only your eyes
closing.
My tongue
in the crux of your chest.
Little black hairs
like the legs
of vanished insects.
I never wanted the flesh.
How it never fails
to fail
so accurately.
But what if I broke through
the skin's thin page
anyway
& found the heart
not the size of a fist
but your mouth opening
to the width
of Jerusalem. What then?
To love another
man--is to leave
no one behind
to forgive me.
I want to leave
no one behind.
To keep
& be kept.
The way a field turns
its secrets
into peonies.
The way light
keeps its shadow
by swallowing it.
”
”
Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds)
“
Even more interesting is that with all these millions of "fortuitous" colors, it appears that particularity is so rampant that any object we identify as, say, "blue" shares almost nothing in common with any other object we might identify as the same color. We tend to
think that color operates like crayons. We use one crayon to fill in a tree, a bird, jacket, and a roof. But it appears that the same color can be served by very different microstructures. For example, what we see as simple blue can be produced by incandescnce, transitions, vibrations, refraction, scattering, diffraction, etc. As Hardin points out, the "same blue" found in the sky, water, a rainbow, a beetle, a sapphire, the star Sirius, and a television dot results from very different microstructures. This may be a tough swallow for some Platonists who hope for a uniform basis for each color, but it should be a joy for those who seek to honor our God of the details. Like the true particularity of the persons of the Trinity, creation boasts in real individuality too.
”
”
Douglas M. Jones III
“
Summer days and junior year, you are my sunshine that brightens up my full moon; we are going to soar together, we will not need to wish upon a star because our dreams will, at last, become true. There may be dark clouds overhead, and times of rain. This may be there showering upon us, but love still grows, we will not care, we will be there looking at that view that goes on for miles. Sometimes we will have to cope with the rainfall that wants to keep us apart. Sometimes I think that I am going to lose my way to you. While the gray storms end up taking our joyful colors away once more.
Upon the clear, we stand together at last… arm in arm, and hand and hand, we are laced, and we embrace one another. The colors of red, blue, and pink are the sky once more. Plus, all along you were there, this time we share. The colors begin setting the mood and light ones more. All the vivid gold sights with the feelings of being united and that will be us as a pair. The many stars shine bright because we are going to be there all night, holding on to what we had that night.
I used to bite my lips, thinking about that gold band, and the sparkly rock on top. You can make me feel like royalty; yes, I will be your queen ruler. Maybe someday all this will not be a fantasy and the dreams will come true when we look at a different view, just me and you.
”
”
Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh The Lusting Sapphire Blue Eyes)
“
Sonnet for Thunder Lovers and Primary Colors”
When Sweet Nothings Just Don’t Cut It
You’re more than soda fizz, than sparklers lit
for kids at play, than fireflies’ flit in sky.
You spin around my heart and up my thigh
with the whistle and boom of a bottle rocket.
Baby, those other jugglers’ gigolo tricks—
magician’s spell and mime’s unspoken sigh—
don’t turn my head, don’t catch my ear or eye,
but your mercury rolls in my hip pocket.
Some women like the subtle hints, require
a pastel touch, a whispered cry and blush,
but not me; I am all hyperbole.
Your howls of red, your strokes of green sapphire,
your cayenne kiss, serrano pepper rush
from lip to nape of knee will do for me.
from Rattle #12, Winter 1999. Tribute to Latino/Chicano Poets
”
”
Brenda Cárdenas
“
It was still dark. I grabbed the Howzer by the bed and crept quietly from the bedroom. I saw her through the screen door and laid down the gun, my soul in turmoil. As she stood silently crying beneath the starry Spanish sky, I suddenly realized she wouldn’t make it back from here.
”
”
Bobby Underwood (The Sapphire Sea (Matt Ransom #8))
“
Here are to be seen all the varied colors which Bierstadt and Church endeavor to represent in their mountain scenery. A journey across and around them on foot and upon horseback will well repay the tourist or artist. The air is pure and fragrant, and as exhorting as the purist wine; the climate entrancingly mild; the sky clear, and blue as the most beautiful sapphire, with here and there clouds of rarest loveliness, presenting to the eye the richest commingling of bright and varied colors; delightful odors are constantly being wafted by; while forests, filled with the mockingbird, the colibri, the hummingbird, and the thrush, constantly put forth a joyful chorus, and all combine to fill the soul with visions of delight and enhance the perfection and glory of the creation.
Strong indeed must be the unbelief which can here contemplate nature in all her purity and glory, and unawed by the sublimity of this closely-connected testimony, question either the Divine origin or purpose of the beautiful firmament.
”
”
George Armstrong Custer (My Life on the Plains (Illustrated & Annotated): Personal Experiences With Indians (History in Words and Pictures Series Book 1))
“
How beautiful your eyes,
that fuse the cadence of a rainbow
with the sapphire skies
as rhododendrons stand side by side.
O’ my dear valentine!
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya
“
The sky was an eddy of molten amethyst, sapphire, and ruby, all bleeding into a final pool of onyx. I wanted to swim in it, wanted to bathe in its colors and feel the stars twinkling between my fingers.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))
“
She’d braided her hair over her head in her usual style, but atop it, a delicate tiara of glinting black stone rested, slender spikes jutting upward in a dark corona. Each spike was topped with a tiny sapphire, as if the spikes were so sharp they’d pierced the sky and drawn cobalt blood.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
“
See them stars starting to twinkle? They’s Gawd’s diamonds. You ’eah me? And the night sky turning so blue? That’s He sapphires for us.
”
”
Dorothea Benton Frank (Sullivan's Island (Lowcountry Tales #1))
“
If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and in its place is a girl.
Her hair and lashes are painted a shifting silver, and a scar crosses one side of her face. She is dressed in Sealand silk and a necklace of sapphire . Some say that, once upon a time, she had a prince, a father, a society of friends. Others say that she was once a wicked queen ,a worker of illusions, a girl who brought darkness across the lands. Stilll others say that she once had a sister, and that she loved her dearly. Perhaps all of these are true.
She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen.
These are only rumour,of course, and make little more than a story to tell round a fire. But it is told. And thus they live on.
”
”
Marie Lu (The Midnight Star (The Young Elites, #3))
“
My teta hung the sky every morning, like a sapphire sheet on a clothesline pirouetting in the breeze
”
”
Susan Abulhawa (The Blue Between Sky and Water)
“
The sky was a hollow bell, ringing with blueness. Burning vapor trails of broken cloud below, like blossom on a lake, upper air thin as eggshell, pierced with fragile rays like the slender strings of a harp. Through its alleyways of soundless sapphire fled Shaina’s soul.
”
”
Tanith Lee (Volkhavaar)
“
Lieke, will you accept this flawed heart of mine-my temper, my Empatience, my
odd timing of serious questions and be
my wife?"
Joyful tears stuck in my throat, holding
my voice hostage so that all I could do
was nod. Connor slipped the sapphire ring
back onto my finger.
Placing my hand over his heart and
reaching my lips up to his, I whispered
my answer.
"Until the stars fall, Connor, I live for you
and you alone.
”
”
Vanessa Rasanen (Once the Skies Fade (Immortal Reveries, #2))
“
Then, as I was waiting, I saw a kite come up over the valley, and I followed it with my eyes as it passed above me into the sunlight high overhead, and I asked myself why, after all, the world was not A Thousand and One Nights, the way it was when I was seven. I heard bagpipes, the goats bells, and voices carrying across the slope of roofs and the valley, and I asked myself this question many times over as I watched the kite in the air. We call them flying dragons in Sicily, as somehow they embody China or Persia in the Sicilian sky, with their sapphire and opal colors and their geometry, and watching it I couldn`t help but ask myself why, really, the faith one has at seven doesn`t last forever.
”
”
Elio Vittorini (Conversations in Sicily)
“
Bundled in her old clothes, she pushed open the door of the cottage and stepped out into a wet, chill day. The wind slapped her face. Her disgust and hatred for all she had been rose like a tide in her. The meadow vista before her ended in the river, cold, gray, and relentless. She had been caught in it once and nearly drowned. She let the thought form in her mind. It would be quick. Cold and unpleasant but quick. She spoke aloud the words that had rattled through her dreams all night. “Time to end this life.” She lifted her face. The wind was pushing heavy clouds across a distant blue sky.
You would kill yourself? Over that? Because Rapskal told you what you already knew? Sintara’s touch on her mind was coldly amused. The dragon’s consideration was distant and impartial. I recall that my ancestors witnessed humans doing this, deliberately choosing to terminate a life span that is already so brief as to be insignificant. Like gnats flying into flames. They flung themselves into rivers, or hanged themselves from bridges. So. The river? Is that how you will do this?
Sintara had not touched minds with her for weeks. For her to return now and to be so coldly curious fired anger in Alise. She scanned the sky. There. A tiny wink of sapphire against the distant clouds.
She spoke aloud, giving vent to her outrage, as in a single heartbeat despair became defiance. “End this life, I said. Not end MY life.” She watched the dragon tip her wings and slide down the sky toward the hills. Change took root in her, grew. “Kill myself? In despair over all the days I’ve wasted, all the ways I’ve deceived myself? What would that do except prove that in the end I still could not escape my own foolishness? No. I’m not ending my life, dragon. I’m taking it. I’m making it mine.”
For a long moment she felt nothing from Sintara. Probably the dragon had spotted some prey and lost all interest in the gnat-lifed woman who could not even kill a rabbit for her. Then, without warning, the dragon’s thoughts boomed through her mind again. The shape of your thoughts has changed. I think you are finally becoming yourself.
As she stared, the dragon suddenly clapped her wings tight to her body and dived on her prey. The immediate absence of the dragon’s touch on her mind was like a gust of wind boxing her ears. She was left stunned and alone.
”
”
Robin Hobb (Blood of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles, #4))
“
Bundled in her old clothes, she pushed open the door of the cottage and stepped out into a wet, chill day. The wind slapped her face. Her disgust and hatred for all she had been rose like a tide in her. The meadow vista before her ended in the river, cold, gray, and relentless. She had been caught in it once and nearly drowned. She let the thought form in her mind. It would be quick. Cold and unpleasant but quick. She spoke aloud the words that had rattled through her dreams all night. “Time to end this life.” She lifted her face. The wind was pushing heavy clouds across a distant blue sky.
You would kill yourself? Over that? Because Rapskal told you what you already knew? Sintara’s touch on her mind was coldly amused. The dragon’s consideration was distant and impartial. I recall that my ancestors witnessed humans doing this, deliberately choosing to terminate a life span that is already so brief as to be insignificant. Like gnats flying into flames. They flung themselves into rivers, or hanged themselves from bridges. So. The river? Is that how you will do this?
Sintara had not touched minds with her for weeks. For her to return now and to be so coldly curious fired anger in Alise. She scanned the sky. There. A tiny wink of sapphire against the distant clouds.
She spoke aloud, giving vent to her outrage, as in a single heartbeat despair became defiance. “End this life, I said. Not end MY life.” She watched the dragon tip her wings and slide down the sky toward the hills. Change took root in her, grew. “Kill myself? In despair over all the days I’ve wasted, all the ways I’ve deceived myself? What would that do except prove that in the end I still could not escape my own foolishness? No. I’m not ending my life, dragon. I’m taking it. I’m making it mine.”
For a long moment she felt nothing from Sintara. Probably the dragon had spotted some prey and lost all interest in the gnat-lifed woman who could not even kill a rabbit for her. Then, without warning, the dragon’s thoughts boomed through her mind again. The shake is your thoughts has changed. I tbh m you are finally becoming yourself.
As she stared, the dragon suddenly clapped her wings tight to her body and dived on her prey. The immediate absence of the dragon’s touch on her mind was like a gust of wind boxing her ears. She was left stunned and alone.
”
”
Robin Hobb (Blood of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles, #4))
“
She was pleasantly surprised at how much remained. Her parents had abandoned a heap of old Caltreyan clothes. Selecting one of the island dresses, Kiela shook it out. Dust plumed in the air. The skirt was a quilt of blue--- sky blue, sapphire blue, sea blue--- all stitched together with silvery thread and hemmed with silver ribbon, and the bodice was a soft white blouse. Not at all a city style, but it was perfect for a picnic in a garden or a stroll on a shore. With a few repairs, she could wear a lot of her mother's abandoned clothes, and she could use her father's for... She wasn't sure what, but they were nice to have. She'd find a use for them. If nothing else, she could chop the fabric up into cleaning rags. Or perhaps learn to quilt? There was a moth-eaten blanket in one closet, in addition to the old quilts on the daybed and her parents' bed. Each quilt had its own pattern--- one was comprised of colors of the sunset and sewn in strips like rays of light, while another was the brown and pale green of a spring garden with pieces cut like petals and sewn like abstract flowers. We left so many beautiful things behind. She'd had no idea. She'd been too little to help much with the packing, though she remembered she'd tried. Carrying an armful of clothes into the kitchen, Kiela dumped them into the sink to soak in water. She planned to use the excess line from the boat to hang them out in the sun to dry. They'll be even more beautiful once they're clean.
The kitchen cabinet produced more treasures: a few plates, bowls, and cups. Each bowl was painted with pictures of strawberries and raspberries, and the plates were painted with tomatoes and asparagus. The teacups bore delicate pictures of flowers.
”
”
Sarah Beth Durst (The Spellshop)
“
Patting her hair, she tried to tame the flyaway strands, but they stayed a wild halo of blue. Inside the library, lit by lamps, her hair usually was a respectably staid shade of night-sky blue, but out here in the sunlight, it was an unruly sapphire.
”
”
Sarah Beth Durst (The Spellshop)
“
I released the fucker on the ground from my hypnosis and he groaned as he came to. I threw out a palm, casting a vine which wrapped around his throat, feeding on his pain, a dark expression pulling at my face as I watched him choke. “Sky blue…cobalt…sapphire… ooh cerulean,” Leon cooed as he watched him changing colour, standing close behind me. He leaned in near to my ear, his breath on my neck. “Make him indigo for me, Scar.” “Fuck off,” I grunted,
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Warrior Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, #5))
“
Job 37:18 Can you, like him, spread out [raqia] the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror? Ex. 24:10 And they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement [raqia] of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. Ezek. 1:22-23 Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse [raqia], shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads. And under the expanse [raqia] their wings were stretched out straight. Prov. 8:27-28 When he established the heavens… when he made firm the skies above. Job 22:14 He walks on the vault of heaven. Amos 9:6 [God] builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth.
”
”
Brian Godawa (Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 1))
“
Put Your Records On"
Three little birds sat on my window.
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Summer came like cinnamon
So sweet,
Little girls double-dutch on the concrete.
Maybe sometimes we've got it wrong, but it's alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don't you hesitate.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
Blue as the sky, sunburnt and lonely,
Sipping tea in a bar by the roadside,
(just relax, just relax)
Don't you let those other boys fool you,
Got to love that afro hair do.
Maybe sometimes we feel afraid, but it's alright
The more you stay the same, the more they seem to change.
Don't you think it's strange?
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
'Twas more than I could take, pity for pity's sake
Some nights kept me awake, I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realise, that you don't even have to try any longer?
Do what you want to.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Oh, you're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow
”
”
Corinne Bailey Rae
“
rubble of his own castle.” Tom felt a wave of relief surge through him as he embraced Aduro, but this was quickly replaced with panic. Where was Arcta? Had the giant somehow been pulled back into Gorgonia? “Arcta has returned to his rightful place – in the mountains,” said King Hugo, sensing his worry. He rose from his throne. “Well done, Tom. You are truly Avantia’s greatest champion.” Tom bowed his head. While the King thanked Elenna for all her help, Tom looked out of one of the throne-room windows. The sky was sapphire-blue, and the sun shone gently down on the green land that surrounded the castle. Brightly coloured flags and pennants fluttered on the houses in the distance. They had escaped the swirling red fog of evil Gorgonia for ever. “We are holding a feast in your honour in the Great Hall today,” King Hugo announced, as he stroked Storm and Silver in turn. “Avantia is impatient to welcome home her heroes.” A liveried servant walked in and draped a soft woollen blanket over Storm’s back, before leading the stallion away for food and a warm stable full of fresh bedding. Tom looked down at the purple jewel that still lay in his hand. He slipped it into his belt. The row of six jewels glowed fiercely, filling the throne room with a rainbow of light and power. The others looked on in wonder. Then King Hugo clapped an arm around Tom’s shoulder, and Aduro walked between Elenna and Silver. Together,
”
”
Adam Blade (Sting the Scorpion Man (Beast Quest: The Dark Realm, #18))
“
I saw the massive stone altar first begin to glow like a ruby; then it was a heart of liquid gold like a solid single-crystal chrysoprase: the gold intensified into ice-cold emerald and passed into the dark sapphire of an arctic sky; this again withdrew into a violet so deep that the visual purple of the eye itself seemed absorbed in that depth, that abyss of color in which sight was being drowned. And as this intensification of vibrancy seemed to sweep across the visible spectrum up to those ranges where energy absorbs all mass and that which can pierce the most solid is itself fine beyond all substance, so it seemed with hearing. That abyss of sound which I had been thinking of as only depth, it, too, seemed to rise or, rather, I suppose I was carried up on some rising wave which explored the deep of the height.
As the light drew toward the invisible, I experienced a sound so acute that I can only remember feeling to myself that this was the note emitted when the visible universe returns to the unmanifest—this was the consummatum est of creation. I knew that an aperture was opening in the solid manifold. The things of sense were passing with the music of their own transmutation, out of sight. Veil after veil was evaporating under the blaze of the final Radiance. Suddenly I knew terror as never before. The only words which will go near to recreating in me some hint of that actual mode are those which feebly point toward the periphery of panic by saying that all things men dread are made actually friendly by this ultimate awfulness. Every human horror, every evil that the physical body may suffer, seemed, beside this that loomed before me, friendly, homely, safe. The rage of a leaping tiger would have been a warm embrace. The hell of a forest wrapped in a hurricane of fire, the subzero desolation of the antarctic blizzard, would have been only the familiar motions of a simple well-known world. Yes, even the worst, most cunning and cruel evil would only be the normal reassuring behavior of a well-understood, much-sympathized-with child. Against This, the ultimate Absolute, how friendly became anything less, anything relative.
”
”
Gerald Heard (Dromenon: The Best Weird Stories of Gerald Heard)
“
Fallen glamor lives in grandma’s jewelry box.
I imagine myself as a great destructive force,
Wrenching diamonds and sapphires from their
sockets
And unloosing them to ride the wind.
The gems stare back at me.
Cold cool-toned stars of the night sky,
Blind to the world above.
”
”
Jessica Rohrbaugh (Temple of Lush: Poems & Prose)
“
His soul, filled with ecstasy, thirsted for freedom, space, latitude. Above him wide and boundless keeled the cupola of the heavens, full of quiet, brilliant stars. Doubled from zenith to horizon ran the Milky Way, as yet unclear. The cool night, quiet to the point of fixity, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral sparkled in the sapphire sky. In the flowerbeds luxuriant autumn flowers had fallen asleep until morning. The earth’s silence seemed to fuse with that of the heavens, the earth’s mystery came into contact with that of the stars … Alyosha stood, looked and suddenly cast himself down upon the earth like one who has had the legs cut from under him. Why he embraced it he did not know, he did not try to explain to himself why he so desperately wanted to kiss it, kiss it, all of it, but weeping he kissed it, sobbing and drenching it with his tears, and frenziedly he swore to love it, love it until the end of the ages. ‘Drench the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears of yours …’ resounded in his soul. What did he weep about? Oh, he wept in his ecstasy even about those stars that shone to him out of the abyss, and ‘was not ashamed of this frenzy’. As though threads from all these countless of God’s worlds had all coincided within his soul at once, and it trembled all over, in ‘the contiguity with other worlds’. He wanted to forgive all creatures for all things and to ask forgiveness, oh, not for himself, but for all persons, all creatures and all things, while ‘others asked the same for me’ – resounded again in his soul. But with each moment that passed he felt plainly and almost palpably that something as firm and unshakeable as this celestial vault was descending into his soul. Something that was almost an idea took mastery of his intellect – and now for the rest of his life and until the end of the ages. A feeble youth had he fallen to the earth, yet now he arose a resolute warrior for the rest of his life and knew and felt this suddenly, at that same moment of his ecstasy. And never, never for all the rest of his life would Alyosha be able to forget that moment. ‘Someone visited my soul in that hour,’ he would say later with resolute faith in his words …
”
”
FYODOR / KOMROFF DOSTOYEVSKY (The Brothers Karamazov)
“
A force of spare direct necessity
Reduced the heavy framework of man’s days
And his overburdening mass of outward needs
To a first thin strip of simple animal wants,
And the mighty wideness of the primitive earth
And the brooding multitude of patient trees
And the musing sapphire leisure of the sky
And the solemn weight of the slowly passing months
Had left in her deep room for thought and God.
01.02_003:024
”
”
Sri Aurobindo (Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol)
“
raised my hands toward the sky and cast fire at the heavens, a huge line of crimson and sapphire igniting the entire cliff in the urgent and magnificent light. “I need help!
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Shadow Princess (Zodiac Academy, #4))
“
From the desperation of golden crowns and born of mortal flesh, a great primal power rises as the heir to the lands and seas, to the skies and all the realms. A shadow in the ember, a light in the flame, to become a fire in the flesh. When the stars fall from the night, the great mountains crumble into the seas, and old bones raise their swords beside the gods, the false one will be stripped from glory until two born of the same misdeeds, born of the same great and Primal power in the mortal realm. A first daughter, with blood full of fire, fated for the once-promised King. And the second daughter, with blood full of ash and ice, the other half of the future King. Together, they will remake the realms as they usher in the end.’” She paused, looking up with eyes as bright as polished sapphires. “‘And so it will begin with the last Chosen blood spilled, the great conspirator birthed from the flesh and fire of the Primals will awaken as the Harbinger and the Bringer of Death and Destruction to the lands gifted by the gods. Beware, for the end will come from the west to destroy the east and lay waste to all which lies between.’” She exhaled unsteadily. “That’s…that’s it.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire, #1))
“
I probably shouldn’t have been smoking outside a church, but hey I wasn’t sold on the whole ‘sky daddy’ situation anyway.
”
”
Bunny Brooks (Sapphire (Blood Stones, #1))
“
and a fine new moon, delicate as an eyelash, hung above them in the sapphire sky.
”
”
Rosamunde Pilcher (Winter Solstice)
“
And the water—it was otherworldly. A hue of teal so postcard perfect, I was disbelieving. But it was not the only shade of blue. When the sky was overcast or the sun had not yet punctured the surface of the morning, we saw lavender gray and cornflower ripple across the ocean’s calm surface. Under the high sun, we boarded fishing boats and walked beaches, witnessing coastal cerulean, jungle azure, deep pools of peacock and sapphire. We swam in turquoise, indigo, aquamarine.
”
”
Jennifer Gold (Halfway to You)
“
Here at the tip of Louisiana, it’s as if the sky and swamp and wild green trees know Holy Fire demands we lead staid, ascetic lives and try to make up for it, giving us all the splendor and decadence we aren’t supposed to want. Sunrises and sunsets are riots of color, the gulf sapphire blue, the black swamp laced with velvet-green lily pads, tall trees almost floating out of the depths. Trees everywhere, in fact: bending over dirt roads and bracing the shore and thick as a wall of sentries in the woods, dripping with Spanish moss. All this beauty stirs the soul, making one feel the pinprick presence of another order: God, perhaps, but maybe also something darker, secret beings with lives that unfold in the slivers between trees, whose slitted eyes blink open at night in the depths of the swamp, yellow and ancient as alligators’.
”
”
Ashley Winstead (Midnight Is the Darkest Hour)
“
The problem with terrorists is they act as if they represent the entire nation when they don’t,’ Oksana had said. ‘They don’t care about the consequences for all the innocent citizens when they provoke another nation to war with them.
”
”
Belinda Alexandra (Sapphire Skies)
“
Isn’t it a lovely day for a party?” Kirsty Tate said, looking up at the sapphire-blue sky
”
”
Daisy Meadows (Bella The Bunny Fairy (Rainbow Fairies: Pet Keeper Fairies, #2))
“
Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and 70 of Israel's elders, 10 and they saw e the God of Israel. Beneath His feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire A stone, as clear as the sky itself. f 11 God did not harm B the Israelite nobles; they saw g Him, and they ate and drank.
”
”
Anonymous (HCSB Study Bible)
“
When we exited the greenhouse, a kaleidoscope of butterflies floated over our heads, whirling in the sky. They were beautiful, their wings a creamy butter speckled with black. The top portion of the wings had stripes, similar to tiger markings, and the hind portion was marked with inlaid sapphire-blue crescents and one golden orange spot. One landed on my shoulder and fluttered its wings.
"Those are flambé butterflies. It's how your grand-mère came up with the name for the other restaurant," said Phillipa. "I Googled the English name: scarce swallowtails."
"I prefer flambé," I said.
”
”
Samantha Verant (The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux (Sophie Valroux #1))
“
My Seclusion
Just like, I remember the- Fireflies at night, they all carry their- own light in flight. They fly higher and higher until they are out of sight. They are never in fear of the darkness because they carry their light. They constantly have hope, and it shines brightly. The firefly flies by, unlike me there are never shy. I am lying outside on the grounds a few feet from my home, yet I am still feeling all alone, listening to all the sounds of the night as they moan. I look at the full moon, knowing that I will be back in hell soon, seeing all the faces at lunch at noon. Wondering what is going to happen on my vacation in the upcoming summer in the months like in June. I lie on the cold hard ground outside looking up with the stars in the sky, remembering all the days flashing that have gone by, seeing all the faces that never even say hi, remembering the terror from the wandering eyes.
(Right now)
My head is pounding just like the thunder and lightning, the evil faces streaks crossed my face, with every bolt of lightning. This takes me back to when I was a little girl; I hope that the pink suspended feathers sweep them away in the white webs.
So, I can have a sunny day on all these rainy days that seem to never end, I just do not have much to say. I am not safe anywhere… the voices haunt me as they do. However, I just have an overwhelming urge to cry, all night and watch movies by myself. Like, I have done, these last two years of my high school life. Is anything going to change? Why must I live like this? Why do I keep living? Why can I not just pass on? I look out my window, and sometimes it takes me back to when I was young.
Some days I look out the window and the skies are scarlet, and that reminds me that I should be out doing things with people of my age. The summer has come and gone, and the school days have started with no one to see me, or even ask if I was alive. No one cares!
Is the plan going to work? I have no idea at this point, yet I keep trying!
”
”
Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh The Lusting Sapphire Blue Eyes)
“
My dress is of plain forest green wool, but the other girls are wearing beautiful tunics the color of gems- ruby dresses with sapphire mantles and dappled with jewels that dance before me like little insects on fire. My hair is dark as a crow, but theirs is red and gold and even longer than mine. A ray of sun slashes through the turbulent Irish sky, and I see that my friends' perfect skin shimmers in the sun, making them almost translucent.
”
”
Karen Essex (Dracula in Love)
“
Variations on a Summer Day"
I
Say of the gulls that they are flying
In light blue air over dark blue sea.
II
A music more than a breath, but less
Than the wind, sub-music like sub-speech,
A repetition of unconscious things,
Letters of rock and water, words
Of the visible elements and of ours.
III
The rocks of the cliffs are the heads of dogs
That turn into fishes and leap
Into the sea.
IV
Star over Monhegan, Atlantic star,
Lantern without a bearer, you drift,
You, too, are drifting, in spite of your course;
Unless in the darkness, brightly-crowned
You are the will, if there is a will,
Or the portent of a will that was,
One of the portents of the will that was.
V
The leaves of the sea are shaken and shaken.
There was a tree that was a father.
We sat beneath it and sang our songs.
VI
It is cold to be forever young,
To come to tragic shores and flow,
In sapphire, round the sun-bleached stones,
Being, for old men, time of their time.
VII
One sparrow is worth a thousand gulls,
When it sings. The gull sits on chimney-tops.
He mocks the guineas, challenges
The crow, inciting various modes.
The sparrow requites one, without intent.
VIII
An exercise in viewing the world.
On the motive! But one looks at the sea
As one improvises, on the piano.
IX
This cloudy world, by aid of land and sea,
Night and day, wind and quiet, produces
More nights, more days, more clouds, more worlds.
X
To change nature, not merely to change ideas,
To escape from the body, so to feel
Those feelings that the body balks,
The feelings of the natures round us here:
As a boat feels when it cuts blue water.
XI
Now, the timothy at Pemaquid
That rolled in heat is silver-tipped
And cold. The moon follows the sun like a French
Translation of a Russian poet.
XII
Everywhere the spruce trees bury soldiers:
Hugh March, a sergeant, a redcoat, killed,
With his men, beyond the barbican.
Everywhere spruce trees bury spruce trees.
XIII
Cover the sea with the sand rose. Fill
The sky with the radiantiana
Of spray. Let all the salt be gone.
XIV
Words add to the senses. The words for the dazzle
Of mica, the dithering of grass,
The Arachne integument of dead trees,
Are the eye grown larger, more intense.
XV
The last island and its inhabitant,
The two alike, distinguish blues,
Until the difference between air
And sea exists by grace alone,
In objects, as white this, white that.
XVI
Round and round goes the bell of the water
And round and round goes the water itself
And that which is the pitch of its motion,
The bell of its dome, the patron of sound.
XVII
Pass through the door and through the walls,
Those bearing balsam, its field fragrance,
Pine-figures bringing sleep to sleep.
XVIII
Low tide, flat water, sultry sun.
One observes profoundest shadows rolling.
Damariscotta dada doo.
XIX
One boy swims under a tub, one sits
On top. Hurroo, the man-boat comes,
In a man-makenesse, neater than Naples.
XX
You could almost see the brass on her gleaming,
Not quite. The mist was to light what red
Is to fire. And her mainmast tapered to nothing,
Without teetering a millimeter's measure.
The beads on her rails seemed to grasp at transparence.
It was not yet the hour to be dauntlessly leaping.
”
”
Wallace Stevens (Parts of a World)
“
From the day we arrive on this planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There is far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
It’s the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life
It’s the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life
”
”
Tim Rice (The Lion King)
“
هاكونا ماتاتا - Hakuna Matata”، كلمة سيمبا اتعلمها من تيمون و بومبا أول يوم قابلهم في الغابة بعد ما هرب من أهله. معناها بالأنجليزي “No Worries”، أما في مصر عندنا ليها مرادفات كتير زي “نَفّض”، “كبّر”، “طَنّش”، “إحلَق”، “أفْكِس”.. حسب الجيل والمستوى الإجتماعي اللي بننشأ فيه..
وفي الأغنية الشهيرة اللي في نص الكارتوون شرح تيمون لسيمبا lifestyle هاكونا ماتاتا كالتالي:
It means no worries for the rest of your days, it's our problem-free philosophy.
بمعنى أنه ابتكر فلسفة حياة مبنية على اللامبالاة وعدم الاكتراث بأي حاجة حصلت في الماضي او بتحصل دلوقتي او هتحصل في المستقبل وبالتالي عايش هو وبومبا بدون مشاكل..
أُعجب سيمبا جداً بالفسلفة دي لأسباب كتير، أولها الأسلوب المُسلّي اللي تيمون وبومبا قدموها بيه، وأهمها أنه لقى فيها حل فوري لحالة الإكتئاب اللي عنده من ساعة ما تسبب في موت باباه، وبدل ما يواجه الواقع تبنى فلسفة التنفيض؛ “هاكونا ماتاتا”، وأول حاجة قرر “ينفضلها” هي أهله، بما فيهم مامته..
ومن خلال إخراج الأغنية اللي مليان رموز ومعاني بنشوف إزاي تيمون وبومبا بيغيروا فكر سيمبا بشكل مؤسف جداً في حين أن ظاهر المشهد مُبهج ومُفرح في تناقد شديد ميفهموش غير المشاهد المتأمل خلاصته أن الentertainment - بمعنى اللهو - هو مفتاح لتحويل نظرة أي شخص تجاه حاجة مذمومة إلى محمودة.
فنلاقي مثلاً أن تيمون طلّع مَبرد وبَرد لسيمبا مخالبه كرمزية لإنتكاس الفطرة وتبدُّل السنّة. كمان بعد ما Mufasa بابا سيمبا ما كان بيربيه على معاني الصبر والتركيز والتأني في درس الصيد في أول الفيلم دلوقتي تيمون بيعلمه يستسهل وياكل دود وخنافس وصراصير وحاجات مقرفة جداً كرمزية للإستغناء عن العلم والعمل. الملفت للنظر أن “تيمون” اللي كان طول الوقت متزعِم سيمبا وبومبا هو في الحقيقة أصغر وأضعف واحد فيهم، لكنه قدر يتزعمهم بسهولة لأنهم نسيوا هويتهم.
وبعد flash forward سنين لقدام بنشوف سيمبا كبر وبقى شاب لكن للأسف بشخصية ضعيفة وهايفة واضحة في مظهره وتصرفاته وتطلعاته، فبعد ما كان بيعتز جداً بكلام باباه وشايفه قدوة ليه بقى بيتكسف وبيسخر منه بينه وبين صحابه، وبعد ما كان حلمه أنه يُحكم الغابة بالعدل ويحرر “مقبرة الفيلة” من إحتلال الضباع بقى هدفه الوحيد في الحياة أنه “يقضّيها” مع صحابه الفاشلين الهايفين، وبعد ما كان أكتر شخص مميز في الغابة وفي نظر كل الغابة ليه مستقبل مشرق، بقى ملوش لازمة ولا أهمية.. وفضل عايش سنين على الحال دا، لحد ما في يوم قابل Nala.
“نالا” في الكارتوون هيا رمز حطه المؤلف العبقري لحاجة جميلة بتفكر سيمبا بأصله وفطرته وأحلامه، ممكن بالنسبالنا تكون شخصية او مكان او كتاب او ثورة او اي حاجة بنحس فيها بمعاني التغيير، المهم أنها بتواجهه بحقيقته اللي كان ناسيها.. أنه أسد والمفروض يكون ملك الغابة، وأن كل الغابة بتناديه، وحلمه بيدور عليه، ارجع تاني الدنيا محتجالك، ارجع تاني ونور الحياة - فبيتصدم سيمبا في نفسه والحال اللي وصله ويقرر أنه يتغيّر، ويبدأ يدور على الصراط المستقيم.
“But the sun rolling high - through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
It's the Circle of Life, and it moves us all
Through despair and hope, through faith and love
Till we find our place on the path unwinding
In the Circle of Life”
— The Lion King
”
”
Amr Ali Ibrahim (مارينا.. كان يا مكان)
“
In the weeks they had spent getting to know each other, Marjorie had become more and more enamored with the blue of his eyes. She wrote poems about them. The blue like ocean water, like clear sky, like sapphire - she couldn't capture it. At the movies, she had thought about how the only real friends she had were characters in novels, not real at all. And then Graham had appeared and swallowed up a bit of her loneliness with his blue whale eyes. The next day she wouldn't for the life of her be able to remember what the movie was called.
”
”
Yaa Gyasi (Homegoing)
“
Albatross was still pacing slowly toward the queen. “Here is our first animus,” Queen Lagoon said to the SkyWings, who seemed to have figured that out themselves, judging by the looks of terror on their faces. “My brother, Albatross. We were just talking this morning about what his next project should be. I’m thinking big this time. Something that makes me invulnerable, perhaps. Or something that kills any dragon who might be a threat to me.” Beyond Albatross, over by the couches, Splash stiffened, and Fathom saw her crush one of the hibiscus blossoms between her claws. He glanced around and saw his father put a wing around Manta, who had gone pale. “Yes,” Albatross said. “Although you might recall I wasn’t exactly enthused about any of those ideas.” “Then it’s lucky you’re not my only animus dragon,” Queen Lagoon said coldly. Fathom felt a shiver all the way down to the tip of his tail. If she asked him to do a spell like that, would he? Would he obey his queen and put his own mother in danger? Or disobey her, and perhaps put everyone he cared about in even worse danger? What would she do to Indigo if I ever said no to her? Albatross stopped right in front of the queen, snout-to-snout with her. Fathom couldn’t read his face. He looked as though he’d been carved from stone, any emotions chipped away. “Do you think you’re done?” Queen Lagoon said to him softly. “Do you think you’ll ever be done atoning for what you did to Sapphire? It’s not going to end, Albatross. You’ll always be mine.” Something clinked in the background, and Fathom turned, thinking he’d seen a flash of silver in the air, and then a line of red sliced slowly, darkly, murderously across Queen Lagoon’s throat like the widest smile in the world. She blinked at her brother in surprise and lifted one talon to her neck. Her last words were, “But I’m the queen,” and then her body fell in slow motion, legs crumpling, wings crashing down, head landing with a splash in the fountain. Clouds of blood spilled out, turning the water red and black. The queen of the SeaWings was dead. And her animus, Fathom’s grandfather, was holding the knife.
”
”
Tui T. Sutherland (Darkstalker (Wings of Fire: Legends, #1))
“
Those beloved eyes were every blue that had ever existed, chips of ice and flickering flame, blue sky, blue sea, blue pennants snapping over a tournament, sapphire blue and heavy lapis.
”
”
Tessa Gratton (Lady Hotspur (Innis Lear, #2))
“
Your eyes would be beautiful, like sapphires, even without the silver, just like your grandfather said... But with the stains, your eyes are like starlight.... You know how the light we see in the night sky has travelled so far and so long that what we see isn’t what’s present now, only a record of the past? Of what made the galaxy into what it is today?
”
”
Amy Zed (A Symphony of Starlight)