Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Motes
The gay motes that people the sunbeams.
Milton.—Il Penseroso, Line 8.
Like motes dependent on the sunny beam.
Hood.—Midsummer Fairies, Verse 23.
And dance, as motes in his meridian ray.
Dr. Young.—Night VIII. Line 1545.
The whirling motes are seen uprising o’er
The burning sand that glitters on the shore,
Twisting around, across, below, above,
As drawn by some resistless, hidden love:
A fiery column forming in their flight,
And dancing in the beam of broad sun-light.
Lamartine.—The Revds. Evans and Swift’s transl. of Lamartine’s Poem of Jocelyn.