In literature, the phrase "cherry red" often emerges as a striking visual cue that symbolizes both vibrant life and poignant decay. Poets and prose writers utilize the hue to describe everything from the vivid, sensual allure of a woman’s lips—as in lines lamenting lost beauty and passion ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5])—to subtle hints of fading vitality, as when a pale, departed figure is noted to have “lost her cherry red” ([6], [7], [8], [9], [10]). In other narrative moments, the term appears as a livelier detail in everyday description, such as a character’s clothing or even the scattered warmth of fire in a wintry setting ([11], [12]). This recurring use underscores how “cherry red” functions not only as a descriptor of physical color, but also as a metaphorical device evoking emotional intensity and the ephemeral nature of beauty.
- She has not laughing eyes, Blue as the summer skies, Nor lips of cherry red, On kisses to be fed; No, it's not for these I care, Miss Milly O'Naire.
— from Cap and Gown
A Treasury of College Verse
- The first day she came to work her brown cheeks were rouged, her dark eyes were sparkling, her lips were cherry red.
— from Four and Twenty Beds by Nancy Casteel Vogel
- Thus lips and hands, cold ice, my sorrow bred; Hands, warm white snow; and lips, cold cherry red.
— from An English Garner: Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (8 of 8)
- Eyes of purest blue, lips of cherry red, teeth like pearls, silken, golden hair, and form of exquisite mould.
— from The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters by Artemus Ward
- She's very neat, and nice, and clean, Her lips are cherry red, She wears a gay bandanna Tied round her curly head.
— from Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 by E. W. (Edward William) Cole
- Then he turned up the covering-sheet; 45 "Pray let me see the dead; Methinks she looks all pale and wan, She hath lost her cherry red.
— from English and Scottish Ballads, Volume 2 (of 8)
- He turned down the covering-sheet, To see the face of the dead; "Methinks she looks all pale and wan; She hath lost her cherry red.
— from The Haunted Hour: An Anthology
- Methinks she looks all pale and wan, She hath lost her cherry red.
— from Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Volume 3 (of 3)
Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs and Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets Together With Some Few of Later Date
- Then he turned up the covering-sheet; "Pray let me see the dead; Methinks she does look pale and wan, She has lost her cherry red.
— from Popular British Ballads, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 (of 4)
- Then he turned up the covering sheet: 'Pray, let me see the deid; Methinks, she looks all pale and wan; She hath lost her cherry red.
— from The Romantic Scottish Ballads: Their Epoch and Authorship by Robert Chambers
- Her hat was an insolent affair of cherry red.
— from The City of Fire by Grace Livingston Hill
- When it was cherry red in spots, O'Malley poked his tousled head out from under a blanket.
— from A Yankee Flier Over Berlin by Rutherford G. (Rutherford George) Montgomery