Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Gem
In wall and roof and pavement scattered are
Full many a pearl, full many a costly stone.
Ariosto.—Orlando Furioso, Canto XXXIII. Stanza 105.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom’d caves of Ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Gray.—Elegy, Verse 14.
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o’er the wild.
Thomson.—Autumn, Line 210.
Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
Goldsmith.—The Traveller, Line 163.
There kept my charms conceal’d from mortal eye,
Like roses that in deserts bloom and die.
Pope.—Rape of the Lock, Canto IV. Line 158.
Like the desert’s lily, bloom’d to fade.
Shenstone.—Elegy IV.
In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,
She rears her flowers and spreads her velvet green;
Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
And waste their music on the savage race.
Dr. Young.—Satire V. Line 229.