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Crocus   /krˈoʊkəs/   Listen
Crocus

noun
(pl. crocuses, croci)
1.
Any of numerous low-growing plants of the genus Crocus having slender grasslike leaves and white or yellow or purple flowers; native chiefly to the Mediterranean region but widely cultivated.



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"Crocus" Quotes from Famous Books



... poet's question James and John would answer that they "went out to see the blue lupin and salvia, the purple hyacinth, the yellow and white crocus, the scarlet poppy, and gladiolus, the flowering almond, the crimson and ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... with labor's healthy toil, Each face of yon dear home Thou'st set within the pearly blue, Or crocus glow, ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand

... turned to him. Beyond them the lane opened into a field and a clear lake of crocus sky cast a dim light into the shadow where they stood. Above it was a new moon, like a gleaming silver scimitar. Sara saw it was over her left shoulder, and she saw Lige's face ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Crocus.—Among our earliest spring flowers. These will grow in any garden soil, but prefer rich, sandy earth. Plant in October or November, 3 in. deep and 2 in. apart. Take the roots up every second year, and plant the small off-sets in a nursery bed for two ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... deserve special mention are the Crocus, the Snow Drop, the Scilla, and the Musk or Grape Hyacinth. These should be planted in groups, to be most effective, and set close together. They must be used in large quantities to produce much of a show. They are very cheap, and a good-sized ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... mountaineer, and more fragrant in the hills, while the wood hyacinth, at its best, cannot match even the dark bell-gentian, leaving the light-blue star-gentian in its uncontested queenliness, and the Alpine rose and Highland heather wholly without similitude. The violet, lily of the valley, crocus, and wood anemone are, I suppose, claimable partly by the plains as well as the hills; but the large orange lily and narcissus I have never seen but on hill pastures, and the exquisite oxalis ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... black willow and the red maple, are the first trees that are visited by bees. They are fond of the crocus, which is the earliest of our bulbous roots. The stercorary and piggery are next resorted to by these insects, and the extract absorbed from them must be used as a tonic. Blossoms of all kinds, excepting those ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various

... of our pickets and night. It was soon noised in camp that there was a fine fat porker to be distributed after tattoo, and no little eagerness and inquisitiveness were manifested, as all wished a piece. Armed with a crocus-sack, we returned to the house; all was dark and still. We whistled the signal, but no answer. It was repeated, but still no reply. The guard had not come. Sitting down on the door step, we began our long wait. Moments passed into ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... brooklet; Over the welkin travels the cloud; Touch'd by the zephyr, dances the harebell; Cuckoo sits somewhere, singing so loud; Two little children, seeing and hearing, Hand in hand wander, shout, laugh, and sing: Lo, in their bosoms, wild with the marvel, Love, like the crocus, is come ere the Spring. Young men and women, noble and tender, Yearn for each other, faith truly plight, Promise to cherish, comfort and honour; Vow that makes duty one with delight. Oh, but the glory, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... man," added Frank, "I could have excused it; but the fellow's got a whole fortune in nuggets and notes stowed about him. He's a sort of walking 'Crocus,' as he told me once, when he wasn't over ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... divination and doubt when the riddle is not impossible to read, would but the heart cease its hurry an instant; a tumbled sky where the break is coming. It came. The dear old days of my wanderings with Temple framed her face. I knew her without need of pause or retrospect. The crocus raising its cup pointed as when it pierced the earth, and the crocus stretched out on earth, wounded by frost, is the same flower. The face was the same, though the features were changed. Unaltered in expression, but wan, and the kind blue eyes large ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... It was almost painful to see the joy which certain simple wonders gave her. Anything intense or prodigal in nature, any splendidly fluent outpouring of the elements,—the fierce life of streaming fire, water in gliding or tumultuous masses, the vivid gold of crocus and daffodil spouting up through the earth in spring, the exquisite liquidity of a bird singing,—these, as with all elemental poetic natures, gave her the same keen joy which we fable for those who, in the intense morning of the ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... story—despising as too common the fables of Daphnis, a shepherd on Mount Ida, who, for violating his marriage promise, was transformed to stone; of Scython, who changed his sex; of Celemis, a nurse of Jupiter, converted to adamant; and of the nymph Similax, and her lover Crocus, turned into flowers—prefers the history of the fountain Salmacis, who conceived a violent attachment for Hermaphroditus, the son of Mercury and Venus. These sisters, having discontinued their narrating, remained still obstinate in their contempt of Bacchus, who, in revenge, changed their implements ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... of the same ground—once in the early winter, when the blue clematis and the aster had given place to the yellow jasmine and the chrysanthemum; once in the early spring, when those had been succeeded by the almond-blossom and the crocus; and again in the following year, when the beautiful county of Kent was rehabilitated in summer clothing, thus enabling him to verify observations, to correct possible errors arising from first impressions, and to ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... hath seen you come Leaps forth with a hearty shout, And the crocus peeps from the bed where it sleeps To know what ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... lost himself in contemplative enjoyment of the familiar vista of Regent Street, the curved, dotted lines of crocus-coloured lamps, fading in the evening fog, the flitting, ruby-eyed cabs, and the calm, white arc-lights, set irregularly about the circus, dulling the grosser gas. He owned to himself that he had secretly yearned for London; that his satisfaction on leaving the vast city was never ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... Common knife boards with brick dust, soon wear out the knives that are sharpened upon them. To avoid this, cover the board with thick buff leather, and spread over it a thin paste of crocus martis, with a little emery finely powdered, and mixed up with lard or sweet oil. This will give a superior edge and polish to the knives, and make them wear much longer than in the usual way ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... Professor,—a man who has lived long enough to have plucked the flowers of life and come to the berries,—which are not always sad-colored, but sometimes golden-hued as the crocus of April, or rosy-cheeked as the damask of June; a man who staggered against books as a baby, and will totter against them, if he lives to decrepitude; with a brain as full of tingling thoughts, such as they are, as a limb which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... diadems To bind the brows of Queens, impure, Perfidious, passionate, perfumed—these Your petted, pagan stage-properties, Seem but as toys of trifling worth. For I have marked the naked earth Beside my doorstep yield to the print Of a long light foot, and flash with the glint Of crocus-gold— Crocus-gold! Crocus-gold no mill may mint Save the Mill of God— The Mill of God! The Mill of God with His ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... birds; rabbits, because the artist understood rabbits; the beaver, that glorious witness of virtue, who makes himself less certainly a beaver that he may be more safely a saint; the beaver, I say, in white on a green field. Other symbols—the lily of her candour, the rose of her glowing cheeks, the crocus of her hair, the pink anemones which were her toes, the almond for her fingers: she saw herself articulated; her fauna, her flora, her moral and physical attributes cried at her ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... note, amid the dearth, The crocus breaking earth; And near the snowdrop's tender white and green, The ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... upon the length of time madame proposes to stay here. The black dress might be worn on several occasions with impunity. The peacock brocade, the eau de Nil, the crocus yellow, but once—twice at the uttermost. They are ravishing costumes, but wanting in repose. They are ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... and with it the last soiled snow of winter. It was an unusually early spring; tulips in Union Square appeared coincident with crocus and snow-drop; high above the city's haze wavering wedges of wild-fowl drifted toward the Canadas; a golden perfumed bloom clotted the naked branches of the park shrubs; Japanese quince burst into crimson splendour; ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... the grasses would learn to sprout, That the lilac and rose-bush would both leaf out; That the crocus would put on her gay green frill, And robins begin to whistle ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... black pony—her favourite mount. It was a perfect hunting morning: mild and still, with almost a hint of spring warmth in the air. The leafless trees bore faint signs of swelling leaf-buds. Here and there, in the grass beside the drive crocus bells peeped out ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... sudden, inexplicable excitement which she could scarcely conceal. Quickly putting on her hat and cloak, she almost flew down the Manor avenue, regardless of the fact that it was raining dismally, and only noticing that there was a scent of violets in the air, and one or two glimmerings of yellow crocus peeping like golden spears through the wet mould. Arriving at the rectory, she forgot that she had not seen Walden at all since Maryllia's accident, and scarcely waiting for the maid Hester to announce her, she hastened into his study with startling suddenness. Springing from his chair, he confronted ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... from the vanishing orb and for several minutes adorned the lofty dome of the deep-blue sky like the tail of a gigantic peacock. Then the glitter of the shining plumes paled. The light-giving body from which they emanated disappeared and, in its stead, a crimson mantle, with gold-bordered, crocus-yellow edges, spread itself over the space it had left until the gleaming tints merged into the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... when all the children, after the usual frolic with Crocus the cat and the TREMENDOUS DOG, had settled themselves for their "nightcaps," (their meaning of which word, of course, you all know,) the little mother cleared her throat, and paused, for she was feeling for a letter ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... Memory! ever smile on me; Nature's chief beauties spring from thee; Oh, still thy tribute bring Still make the golden crocus shine Among the flowers the most divine, The glory of ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... thus missing its charm. And Arthur Young was ever too intent upon crops and roots to notice wild flowers. Had he traversed this region earlier in the year, he might have missed an exquisite feature, namely, the sweeps of autumn crocus. Just now the rich pastures around Pougues, as well as suburban lawns and wayside spaces, were tinted with delicate mauve, the ground being literally carpeted with these flowers. It was as if the lightest possible veil of pale ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... your wishes. It is not the first time I have been appealed to under such circumstances. There is an art in proposing as well as in every thing. If you are liable to nervousness, do not propose indoors. There is a very nice little nook in the back garden by the crocus bed, where my own romance took place. It is quite unfrequented from 11 to 1 ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... fingertips of the women, all found here a congenial habitat; while a profusion everywhere of sweet-smelling flowers, which saturated the air with their penetrating odours—spring violets, many-coloured anemones, the lily, hyacinth, crocus, narcissus, and wild rose—led the Greeks to bestow upon the island the designation of "the balmy Cyprus." Mines also contributed their share to the riches of which the island could boast. Iron in small ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... you wear mournful black in dress and heart, my angel? Cultivate the green of hope that today made right joyous revelry in me at sight of its external image, when the gardener placed the first messengers of spring, hyacinths and crocus, on my window-ledge. Et dis-moi donc, pourquoi es-tu paresseuse? Pourquoi ne fais-tu pas de musique? I fancied you playing c-dur when the hollow, melting wind howls through the dry twigs of the lindens, and d-moll when the snow-flakes chase in fantastic whirls around the corners ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... eaves are cooing, The chip-bird trills from the apple-tree, Blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing, And the crocus darts ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... their character, and St. Polycarp felicitated him on his chains and sufferings in so good a cause. At Smyrna he was met by deputies of several churches, who were sent to salute him. Those from Ephesus were Onesimus, the bishop; Burrhus, the deacon; Crocus, Euplus, and Fronto. From Magnesia in Lydia, Damas the bishop, Bassus and Apollo, priests, and Sotio, deacon. From Tralles, also in Lydia, Polybius the bishop. From Smyrna, St. Ignatius wrote four letters: in that to the church of Ephesus, he commends the bishop Onesimus, and the piety ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... is since sparrows shrill With their chirping woke us; There is one with busy bill Worrying a crocus. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various

... opposite side of the street rose this immense mountain wall. The lower tier seemed to be a turbulent swell of pasture land, rolling into every imaginable shape; green billows and dells, rising higher and higher in the air as you looked upward, dyed here and there in bright yellow streaks, by the wild crocus, and spotted over with cattle. Dark clumps and belts of pine now and then rise up among them; and scattered here and there in the heights, among green hollows, were cottages, that looked about as ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... have a strong frame of wood and wire to run on, well secured in a tub or box. Hyacinths and crocuses should be planted in pots, boxes, or small tubs, in rich earth, in October or November; a small painted tub is very suitable, and will hold a dozen hyacinths, and as many crocus roots. The most beautiful I ever saw in a window, were planted in this way, by keeping some in the sun, and others in the shade you can have a succession of blooms, they are also pretty in root glasses, but this ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... trembling pinions, and alighted on the golden head of a gathered crocus that lay dying on the stones—a moth that should have been born to no world save that of the summer world ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... operates with irresistible weight. The flower of the western armies had followed Constantius into Britain, and the national troops were reenforced by a numerous body of Alemanni, who obeyed the orders of Crocus, one of their hereditary chieftains. [15] The opinion of their own importance, and the assurance that Britain, Gaul, and Spain would acquiesce in their nomination, were diligently inculcated to the legions by the adherents of Constantine. The soldiers were asked, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... fuoco nota." And a day is coming, be assured, when the kings of Europe will dress their peaceful troops beautifully; will clothe their peasant girls "in scarlet, with other delights," and "put on ornaments of gold upon their apparel;" when the crocus and the lily will not be the only living things dressed daintily in our land, and the glory of the wisest monarchs be indeed, in that their people, like themselves, shall be, at least in some dim likeness, "arrayed like ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... finding it was only a bit of make-believe; for it was now divulged, che questa madre che piangea il suo figlio, was not in fact his personal mother, but "Italy" dressed up like his mother, and gone to Paris on purpose to weep and put garlands on the composer's tomb, amaranth and crocus, and whatever else was in season. Thunders of applause—we hope the new chapel is insured!-for the assiduo ruptae lectore columnae is as old as earthquake in Italy. He now mopped his forehead, and prepared for a new effort. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... and there, on frailest stems Appear some azure gems, Small as might deck, upon a gala day, The forehead of a fay. In gardens you may note amid the dearth, The crocus breaking earth, And, near the snowdrop's tender white and green, The violet in ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... agapanthus; alstremeria; amaryllis; anemone; aralia; araucaria; auricula; azaleas; begonias; cactus; caladium; calceolaria; calla; camellias; cannas; carnations; century plants; chrysanthemums; cineraria; clematis; coleus; crocus; croton; cyclamen; dahlia; ferns; freesia; fuchsia; geranium; gladiolus; gloxinia; grevillea; hollyhocks; hyacinths; iris; lily; lily-of-the-valley; mignonette; moon-flowers; narcissus; oleander; oxalis; palms; pandanus; pansy; pelargonium; peony; phlox; primulas; rhododendrons; ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... their blushing borders, bright with dew, And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers, Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace; Throws out the snow-drop and the crocus first; The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue, And polyanthus of unnumber'd dyes; The yellow wall-flower, stain'd with iron-brown; And lavish stock that scents the garden round; From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, Anemones; auriculas, enrich'd With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves; ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... Sits crowned upon her seat: nor any morrow Hears the Loves laughing round her golden chair. (Alas, thy golden seat, thine empty seat!) Nor any evening sees beneath her feet The daisy rosier flush, the maidenhair And scentless crocus borrow From rose and hyacinth their savour sweet. Without thee is no sweetness in the morn, The morn that was fulfilled of mystery, It lies like a void shell, desiring thee, O daughter of the water and the dawn, Anadyomene! There is no gold upon the bearded corn, No blossom on ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... was come to the Spring, when young men and virgins worship Artemis the Bright; and abroad on the plains the crocus was aflower, and the anemone; and the blades of the iris were like swords stuck hilt downward in the earth. A green veil spread lightly over the land, and men might see a tree scorched black upon one side and budded ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett

... chanticleer proclaims the day. But as far as I know no one has had the insolence to deny the street-organ as the proper herald of the spring. Without it the seasons would halt. Though science lay me by the heels, I'll assert that the crocus, which is a pioneer on the windy borderland of March, would not show its head except on the sounding of the hurdy-gurdy. I'll not deny that flowers pop up their heads afield without such call, that ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... rivulets in zigzags down steep flower-carpeted slopes to the pine woods of Saint Remy, far below. Among the pines the path widens to a wagon-road, whence it descends through green pastures, purple with autumnal crocus, past beggarly villages, whose houses crowd together, like frightened cattle in a herd, through beech woods, vineyards, and grain-fields, till at last it comes to its rest amid the high stone walls of the old city of Aosta, named for Augustus Caesar. Above Aosta are the sources of the river Po, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... her, that she appeared more charming and desirable than she [6] done before, even when their Loves were at the highest. The Poet afterwards describes them as reposing on a Summet of Mount Ida, which produced under them a Bed of Flowers, the Lotos, the Crocus, and the Hyacinth; and concludes his ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... on securely, And every lily leaf is folded purely, Nor any purple crocus hath arisen; Nor any tulip raised its slender stem, And burst the earth-walls of its winter prison, And donned its gold and jewelled diadem; Nor by the brookside in the mossy hollow, That calls to every truant foot to follow, The cowslip yet hath hung its golden ball,— ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean

... all round them. It is the fate of these poor flowers to spring and flourish on the very skirts of retreating winter; they soon wither—the frilled chalice of the soldanella shrivels up and the crocus fades away before the grass has grown; the sun, which is bringing all the other plants to life, scorches their tender petals. Often when summer has fairly come, you still may see their pearly cups and lilac ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... semicircle are eleven beds of different sizes bordered with box and arranged round a sun-dial, and the sun-dial is very venerable and moss-grown, and greatly beloved by me. These beds were the only sign of any attempt at gardening to be seen (except a solitary crocus that came up all by itself each spring in the grass, not because it wanted to, but because it could not help it), and these I had sown with ipomaea, the whole eleven, having found a German gardening book, according to ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... and Cerealian ears of corn were also extended from above. Her garment was of many colors, and woven from the finest flax, and was at one time lucid with a white splendor, at another yellow, from the flower of crocus, and at another flaming with a rosy redness. But that which most excessively dazzled my sight, was a very black robe, fulgid with a dark splendor, and which, spreading round and passing under her right side, and ascending to her left shoulder, there rose protuberant, like the centre of a shield, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... a little too much embroidery to the square inch of happening. There are indeed some good fights, though, by reason of this excess of embroidery, they are a little vague and difficult to follow. It is very well to have orgulous messires and men of courteoisie, with cotehardie of crocus or hose of purpure (showing how History repeateth herself), gearing and graithing for battle, mounted on coal-black destriers and generally behaving right this, that and the other withal; but when Yolande, asking Harvanger what will happen to her when he is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various

... a crocus blooming in the park, I felt a hint of magic in the air, I heard faint music sighing everywhere, And so, as all the world, ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... grey drift of the town The crocus works among the mould As eagerly as those that crown The Warwick ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... kneeling at the west gable window watching the sunset sky that was like a great flower with petals of crocus and a heart of fiery yellow. She turned her head at Davy's question and ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... flowerless now, but giving dim prediction of trained and blooming creepers for summer days. A grass plat and borders fronted the cottage. The borders presented only black mould yet, except where, in sheltered nooks, the first shoots of snowdrop or crocus peeped, green as emerald, from the earth. The spring was late; it had been a severe and prolonged winter; the last deep snow had but just disappeared before yesterday's rains; on the hills, indeed, white remnants of it yet gleamed, flecking the hollows and crowning ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... Crocus and spikenard blossom on my lawn, The brier fades, the thistle is withdrawn. Behold, where glass-clear brooks are flowing, The splendor of the myrtle blowing! The garden-tree has doffed her widow's veil, And shines in festal garb, in verdure pale. The turtle-dove is cooing, hark! Is ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... when the doctor came up to see Faith. The room was full of a May warmth and sweetness from the open windows; and Faith herself in a white dress instead of the brown wrapper, looked May-like enough. Not so jocund and blooming certainly; she was more like a snowdrop than a crocus. Her cheeks were pale and thin, but their colour was fresh; and her eye had the light of returning health,—or of ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... holding out at the end of its boughs next year's buds, frozen indeed, but unkilled. The rhododendron and the lilac have their blossoms all ready, wrapped in cere-cloth, waiting in patient faith. Under the frozen ground the crocus and the hyacinth and the tulip hide in their hearts the perfect forms of future flowers. And it is even so with you: your leaf-buds of the future are frozen, but not killed; the soil of your heart has many flowers under it cold and still now, but they will yet come ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... evening the sun set with great splendour. The frost had come and hardened the snow and all day the sky bad been a pale frozen blue, only on the horizon fading into crocus yellow. ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole

... from that of steward down to that of stable-boy, which he did not cheerfully assume. His round of work not consuming all his energies, he must needs cultivate the Doctor's garden, which he kept in one perpetual bloom, from the blowing of the first crocus to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... of green shall creep Soon o'er the orchard's grassy floor, And from its bed the crocus peep Beside the ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... crocus and the snowdrop—neither being probably an indigenous flower, since neither is mentioned by Chaucer—usually open before the first of March; indeed, the snowdrop was formerly known by the yet more fanciful name of "Fair Maid of February." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... desk; it seemed to me the sun of summer. Snow is still falling. I can see its ghostly glimmer against the vanishing sky. To-morrow it will be thick upon my garden, and perchance for several days. But when it melts, when it melts, it will leave the snow-drop. The crocus, too, is waiting, down there under the white mantle ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... Manteno, from the committee on floriculture, strongly urged the cultivation of house-plants, not only as beautifiers, but to give the most pleasant occupation to every lady of the family. She referred to the earlier flowers of summer especially—the crocus, snow-drop, lily of the valley, tulips. Next to these came the annuals; with little trouble these could be had for months. The wild flowers of the prairies were spoken of, and she suggested that we should obtain seed of the flowers and raise such as we wish. The paper was a good one and ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... mantle blew unclasped, From off her shoulder backward borne: From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... all aflame with the joy of the springtime. The perfume from the great clusters of yellow daffodils and violets floated up from the flower sellers' baskets below; the fresh, warm air seemed to bring him poignant memories of crocus-starred lawns, of trim beds of hyacinths, of the song of birds, of the perfume of drooping lilac. Grim and motionless, as a figure of fate, Wingrave looked down from his window, with cold, yet discerning eyes. He was still an alien, a denizen ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... several of the spring blossoms—the Ethels first, representing the yellow crocus and the violet. Ethel Brown wore a white dress covered with yellow gauze sewn with yellow crocuses. A ring of crocuses hung from its edge and a crocus turned upside down made a fascinating cap. All the flowers were made of tissue paper. Ethel Blue's dress was fashioned in the same ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... child the small ground-flowers of spring took a larger hold upon me than any others:—I was so close to them. Roses I don't remember till I was four or five; but crocus and snowdrop seem to have been in my blood from the very beginning of things; and I remember likening the green inner petals of the snowdrop to the skirts of some ballet-dancing dolls, which danced themselves out of sight before I was four ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... baby haunted, and it was to see the babies, whether sturdily on foot or seated in their little carriages, that George Lovegrove had come hither, being sad. Thrushes sang lustily from the treetops. The flowerborders grew resplendent with polyanthus, crocus yellow, purple, and white, with early daffodils, and the heaven blue of scilla sibirica. Above, here and there a froth of almond or cherry blossom overspread the dark twigs and branches, while a ruddiness of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... snow-drop, that doth hang and pore Upon the earth, like Science, evermore, And underneath the clod doth grope and grope, — The astronomer heliotrope, That watches heaven with a constant eye, — The daring crocus, unafraid to try (When Nature calls) the February snows, — And patience' perfect rose. Thus sped with helps of love and toil and thought, Thus forwarded of faith, with hope thus fraught, In four brief cycles round the stringent sun This youngest ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... thee; 10 And one white she-slave from the group dispersed Of black and white slaves (like the checker-work Pavement, at once my nation's work and gift, Now covered with this settle-down of doves), One lyric woman, in her crocus vest 15 Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands Commends to me the strainer and the cup Thy lip hath bettered ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... Neglected dress, and loud insistent tones, More rasping than the wrongs which she bemoans, Walks through the land and wearies all who hear, While yet we know the need of such reform; So comes unlovely March, with wind and storm, To break the spell of winter, and set free The poisoned brooks and crocus beds oppressed. Severe of face, gaunt-armed, and wildly dressed, She is not fair nor beautiful to see. But merry April and sweet smiling May Come not till March has first ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... enlisted in another direction, and it was not without a certain feeling of impatience that they watched this portion of the procession file by. The young maidens and the handsome boys, bearing flaming torches, and strewing handfuls of crocus flowers along the way, hardly attracted any attention. The idea of beholding Nyssia had preoccupied ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... prove superior both in prowess and in might. It shot up first-born when the ravening eagle on the rugged flanks of Caucasus let drip to the earth the blood-like ichor of tortured Prometheus. And its flower appeared a cubit above ground in colour like the Corycian crocus, rising on twin stalks; but in the earth the root was like newly-cut flesh. The dark juice of it, like the sap of a mountain-oak, she had gathered in a Caspian shell to make the charm withal, when she had first bathed in seven ever-flowing streams, and had called seven times ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... mignonnette, and the white convolvulus; and clematis festooning the bushes, recalled the flowery fields and lanes of England, and yet told us that we were not there. The meadows had also their moist emerald sward scattered with the grass of Parnassus, and an autumnal crocus ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... things to you from Smyrna, by the hand of the Ephesians, who are worthy of all felicitation. And Crocus also, a name very dear to me, is with ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... unique about Christ. Of course just as there are false dawns before the dawn itself, and winter days so full of sudden sunlight that they will cheat the wise crocus into squandering its gold before its time, and make some foolish bird call to its mate to build on barren boughs, so there were Christians before Christ. For that we should be grateful. The unfortunate thing is that there have been none since. I make one exception, St. Francis of ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde

... calendars the seasons as they come and go. As an early blossom fades, a later one takes its place through all the flowery way from crocus ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... the Crocus said, "When I hear the bluebirds sing." And straight thereafter Narcissus cried, "My silver and gold I'll bring." "And ere they are dulled," another spoke, "The Hyacinth bells shall ring." And the Violet only murmured, "I'm here," And sweet grew the air of spring. Then, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... elevation—"pillars of heaven, the fosterers of enduring snows."[25] Rich sheltered plains lie at their feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle of trees, and shrubs, and flowers,—"the verdant gloom of the thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus steeped in heavenly dew, the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and ever-fresh-sprouting olive-tree,"[26] and the luxuriant palm, which nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the combination of these features, in the most diversified manner, with ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... pane vivunt cives utriusque patri Avidi et semper pleni, quod habent desiderant Non sacietas fastidit, neque fames cruciat Inhiantes semper edunt, et edentes inhiant Flos perpetuus rosarum ver agit perpetuum, Candent lilia, rubescit crocus, sudat balsamum, Virent prata, vernant sata, rivi mellis influunt Pigmentorum spirat odor liquor et aromatum, Pendent poma floridorum non lapsura nemorum Non alternat luna vices, sol vel cursus syderum Agnus ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... have wailed in the valley of diamonds," until one morning they heard a bird sing, and soon the snow on the higher levels began to melt and send the water with a rush down the sides of the streets. Almost in a breath the hill slopes about them turned as white with crocus blooms as they had been in their winter covering of snow. Into their hearts something of the springtime entered, and one day Louis sat singing beside his wife, who writes: "I do not care for the music, but it makes me feel so happy to see him so well. When I wake in the morning I wonder ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... of her We can say that she is fair. We bleached the fillet, Brought the myrtle; To us the task was set Of knotting the fine threads of silk: We fastened the veil, And over the white foot Drew on the painted shoe Steeped in Illyrian crocus. ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle

... Miscodeed is a small white flower with a pink border. It is the earliest blooming wild flower on the shores of Lake Superior, and belongs to the crocus family.] ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... crocus burns; The long narcissus-blades appear; The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, And lights her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... morn by the pearly dew The starred narcissi shine, And a wreath with the crocus' golden hue For the Mother and Daughter twine. And never the sleepless fountains cease That feed Cephisus' stream, But they swell earth's bosom with quick increase, And their wave hath a crystal gleam. And the Muses' quire will never disdain To visit this heaven-favored plain, Nor the Cyprian ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... like folks!" she said, holding it off and looking at it in high derision. "Look at that thing, Miss Gibbie, peart as the first crocus and proud as cuffy when the weather was good, and at the first touch of dampness or discouragement flop it goes, and no more spirit than a convict in court! It certainly is strange how many things in nature is like human beings. Now this here rooster and this here duck"—she ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... flowers for bees is useless, except a few early flowers near the hives for the bees to collect some pollen for the brood, such as the common kinds of crocus, white alyssum, single blue hepaticas, helleborus niger, and tussilago petasites, all of which flower early; but should any of the tribe of the willows grow near, there will be no necessity for cultivating the flowers above-mentioned, as they ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn

... eager arms around the goddess threw. Glad Earth perceives, and from her bosom pours Unbidden herbs and voluntary flowers: Thick new-born violets a soft carpet spread, And clustering lotos swell'd the rising bed, And sudden hyacinths the turf bestrow,(237) And flamy crocus made the mountain glow There golden clouds conceal the heavenly pair, Steep'd in soft joys and circumfused with air; Celestial dews, descending o'er the ground, Perfume the mount, and breathe ambrosia round: At length, with love and sleep's soft power oppress'd, The panting thunderer nods, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... crocus thrusts its point of gold Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould, And folded green things in dim woods unclose Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes Into my veins and makes me kith ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... mother earth; he sees no evidence of that vitality which the beneficent sun will develop to grace and beautify the world. But let him remain till March or April, and as the snow begins to melt away, he discovers the beautiful crocus struggling through the half-frozen ground; the snow-drops appear in all their chaste beauty; the buds of the swamp-maple shoot forth; the beautiful magnolia opens her splendid blossoms; the sassafras adds its evidence of life; the pearl-white blossoms of the dog-wood ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... Charlottesville and stopped at the office of Mr. Smith, whom he found at the back of the house, watching from a chair planted in the sunshine the springing of a line of bulbs. "You see, sir," quoth the agent, "I cultivate my garden! Tulips here, crocus there, yonder hyacinths. Red Chalice has been up two days, and my white Amazon peeped out of the earth yesterday. King Midas and Sulphur and Madame Mere are on the way. Well, Mr. Cary, I tried my level ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... intercourse with Egypt, the Cyclades, the Troad and the Greek peninsula.[828] Minoan art has a freshness, vivacity, and modernity that distinguishes it fundamentally from the formal products of its neighbors. "Many of the favorite subjects, like the crocus and wild goat, are native to the islands.... Even where a motive was borrowed from Egyptian life, it was treated in a distinctive way," made tender, dramatic, vital. "In religion, as in art generally, Crete translated its loans into indigenous terms, and contributed ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple



Words linked to "Crocus" :   iridaceous plant, saffron, saffron crocus



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