The loveliest flowers the closest cling to earth,
And they first feel the sun: so violets blue;
So the soft star-like primrose—drenched in dew—
The happiest of Spring's happy, fragrant birth.
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in the earth's firmament do shine.
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay./poem>
| author = Longfellow
| work = Flowers.
| place = St. 6.
| topic = Flowers
| page = 280
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 4
| text = <poem>The flaming rose gloomed swarthy red;
The borage gleams more blue;
And low white flowers, with starry head,
Glimmer the rich dusk through.
George MacDonald—Songs of the Summer Night. Pt. in.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.
Marlowe—The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
A wilderness of sweets.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Lost.
| place = Bk. V. L. 294.
| note =
| topic = Flowers
| page = 280
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 8
| text = The bright consummate flower.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Lost.
| place = Bk. V. L. 481.
| topic = Flowers
| page = 280
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 9
| text = And touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Lost.
| place = Bk. VIII. L. 47.
| topic = Flowers
| page = 280
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 10
| text = * * * at shut of evening flowers.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Lost.
| place = Bk. IX. L. 278.
| topic = Flowers
| page = 280
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 11
| text = <poem>The foxglove, with its stately bells
Of purple, shall adorn thy dells;
The wallflower, on each rifted rock,
From liberal blossoms shall breathe down,
(Gold blossoms frecked with iron-brown,)
Its fragrance; while the hollyhock,
The pink, and the carnation vie
With lupin and with lavender,
To decorate the fading year;
And larkspurs, many-hued, shall drive
Gloom from the groves, where red leaves lie,
And Nature seems but half alive.
Anemones and seas of gold,
And new-blown lilies of the river,
And those sweet flow'rets that unfold
Their buds on Camadera's quiver.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Light of the Harem.
Yet, no—not words, for they
But half can tell love's feeling;
Sweet flowers alone can say
What passion fears revealing:
A once bright rose's wither'd leaf,
A tow'ring lily broken,—
Oh, these may paint a grief
No words could e'er have spoken.
Moore—The Language of Flowers.
The Wreath's of brightest myrtle wove
With brilliant tears of bliss among it,
And many a rose leaf cull'd by Love
To heal his lips when bees have stung it.
Moore—The Wreath and the Chain.
Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue,
Spring, glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.
N. Muller—The Paradise of Tears. Trans. by Bryant.
"A milkweed, and a buttercup, and cowslip,"
said sweet Mary,
"Are growing in my garden-plot, and this I call my dairy."
Peter Newell—Her Dairy.
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! the flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
Peter Newell—Wild Flowers.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Csesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. 19. FitzGerald's Trans.
One thing is certain and the rest is lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. 63. FitzGerald's Trans.
He bore a simple wild-flower wreath:
Narcissus, and the sweet brier rose;
Vervain, and flexile thyme, that breathe
Rich fragrance; modest heath, that glows
With purple bells; the amaranth bright,
That no decay, nor fading knows,
Like true love's holiest, rarest light;
And every purest flower, that blows
In that sweet time, which Love most blesses,
When spring on summer's confines presses.
In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language Dears.
Percival—The Language of Flowers.
Here blushing Flora paints th' enamell'd ground.
