“Like gay-hued leaves after an autumn storm, the fallen littered the plain; the sinking sun shimmered on burnished helmets, gilt-worked mail, silver breastplates, broken swords and the heavy regal folds of silken standards, overthrown in pools of curdling crimson. In silent heaps lay war-horses and their steel-clad riders, flowing manes and blowing plumes stained alike in the red tide. About them and among them, like the drift of a storm, were strewn slashed and trampled bodies in steel caps and leather jerkins…”

— Robert E. Howard

"The Scarlet Citadel" (1933)

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Robert E. Howard 145

American author 1906–1936

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“The clangor of the swords had died away, the shouting of the slaughter was hushed; silence lay on the red-stained snow. The bleak pale sun that glittered so blindingly from the ice-fields and the snow-covered plains struck sheens of silver from rent corselet and broken blade, where the dead lay as they had fallen. The nerveless hand yet gripped the broken hilt; helmeted heads back-drawn in the death-throes, tilted red beards and golden beards grimly upward, as if in last invocation to Ymir the frost-giant, god of a warrior-race…”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

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“Now there was fought a battle such as men have not seen the like. And the earth was covered with steel, and arrows fell from the clouds like hail, and the ground was torn with hoofs, and blood flowed like water upon the plains. And the dead lay around in masses, and the feet of the horses could not stir because of them.”

Ferdowsi book Shahnameh

Translation of Helen Zimmern http://classics.mit.edu/Ferdowsi/kings.14.defeatafrasiyab.html
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“Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears!
The red-cross squadrons madly rage,
And mow thro' infancy and age”

Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) British poet

III.2. l. 1-3.
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“In that moment, he chose Greek. He threw in his lot with Camp Half-Blood-and the horses changed. The storm clouds inside burned away, leaving nothing but red dust and shimmering heat, like mirages on the Sahara.”

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Source: The House of Hades

“Poland is like an island on the north European plain. At times the island has been swamped by a tide of iron or steel helmets converging from Germany and Russia. At times it has drifted suddenly with the current; if the continent of Africa had drifted relatively as much as the boundaries of Poland have drifted in the last two hundred years, then Africa would at one time have touched the north pole and at another the south pole.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

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“Huge bodies of vapour—a storm in each—were hurrying over a sky, dashed alike with the hues of the tempest and the morning; some of the vapours were of inky blackness, others spread like a scroll of royal purple; some undulated with the light struggling through, others were of transparent whiteness; but those upon the east were of a deep crimson—and the round, red sun had just mounted above an enormous old cedar. Red hues were cast upon everything; even the lilies blushed, and the waters of the little fountain were like melted rubies…”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

“As autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills, toward each other approached the heroes.—As two dark streams from high rocks meet, and mix and roar on the plain; loud, rough and dark in battle met Lochlin and Innis-fail. Chief mixed his strokes with chief, and man with man; steel, clanging, sounded on steel, helmets are cleft on high. Blood bursts and smokes around. … As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven, such is the noise of battle.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Book I
The Poems of Ossian, Fingal, an ancient Epic Poem

“The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.”

Elinor Wylie book Nets to Catch the Wind

1
Nets to Catch the Wind (1921), Wild Peaches

“He is steel! He would go through you like a sword!”

Bram Stoker book Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving

Describing his first meeting of Sir Richard Francis Burton and his wife Isabel, on 13 August 1878, Vol. 1, p. 224
Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1907)
Context: I could not but be struck by the strangers. The lady was a big, handsome blonde woman, clever-looking and capable. But the man riveted my attention. He was dark, and forceful, and masterful, and ruthless. I have never seen so iron a countenance. I did not have much time to analyse the face; the bustle of arrival prevented that. But an instant was enough to make up my mind about him. We separated in the carriage after cordial wishes that we might meet again. When we were on the platform, I asked Irving:
"Who is that man?"
"Why," he said, " I thought I introduced you!"
"So you did, but you did not mention the names of the others!" He looked at me for an instant and said inquiringly as though something had struck him:
"Tell me, why do you want to know?"
"Because," I answered, "I never saw any one like him. He is steel! He would go through you like a sword!"
"You are right!" he said. "But I thought you knew him. That is Burton — Captain Burton who went to Mecca!

“Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn evening. The Field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither’d leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;—hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

St. 1
Rugby Chapel (1867)

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Robert E. Howard 145

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