"It is the little rift within the lute
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all."
spavined crowbait—a lame, emaciated horse (from spavin, an inflammation of the tarsal or ankle joint of a horse, causing lameness, and an appearance that causes carrion birds to think a meal is in the offing)
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apples of silver—Proverbs XXV: "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."
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apples of the Hesperides—the eleventh labor of Hercules was to retrieve the golden apples of Zeus, which were guarded by a hundred-headed dragon and by the Hesperides, daughters of Atlas
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Percival De Lacey—possibly derived from Maurice De Bracy in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe
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