Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes

That on the green turf suck the honied showers,

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freakt with jet,

The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine,

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,

And every flower that sad embroidery wears.

John Milton (1608-1674): Lycidas. Line 139.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Destruction of Sennacherib.

To happy convents bosom'd deep in vines,

Where slumber abbots purple as their wines.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 301.

O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move

The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): The Progress of Poesy. I. 3, Line 16.

He is come to open

The purple testament of bleeding war.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 3.

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,

Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar'd all description.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 2.

And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it love-in-idleness.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth!

Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stainèd mouth.

John Keats (1795-1821): Ode to a Nightingale.