Like roses that in deserts bloom and die.—Pope: Rape of the Lock.
In distant wilds, by human eye 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.—Young.
And, like the desert’s lily, bloom to fade.—Shenstone: Elegy IV.
Nor waste their sweetness on the desert air.—Churchill, Gotham.
Which else had wasted in the desert air.
Lloyd: Ode at Westminster School.