Ashes like bread. — Lamentations 3:16. A figurative expression, like “dust shall be the serpent’s meat” (Isaiah 65:25; comp. Genesis 3:14). With the last clause comp. Psalms 42:3, “tears have been my meat day and night.” So too, as an emblem of disappointment, a modern poet: —
“But even while I drank the brook, and ate
The goodly apples, all these things at once
Fell into dust, and I was left alone.”
TENNYSON: Holy Grail.