Here eglantine embalm'd the air,
Hawthorne and hazel mingled there;
The primrose pale, and violet flower,
Found in each cliff a narrow bower;
Fox-glove and nightshade, side by side,
Emblems of punishment and pride,
Group'd their dark hues with every stain
The weather-beaten crags retain.
Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azur'd harebell, like thy veins.
These flowers are like the pleasures of the world.
Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 296.
When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 904.
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white;
Like sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act V. Sc. 5. L. 74.
I know a bank, where the wild thyme blows
Where ox-lips, and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 251. Changed by Stervens to "whereon the wild thyme blows," and "luscious woodbine" to "lush woodbine."
To strew thy green with flowers; the yellows, blues,
The purple violets, and marigolds.
Pericles. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 15.
The fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors.
Winter's Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 81.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets.
Shelley—The Question.
Day stars! that ope your frownless eyes to twinkle
From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation,
And dew-drops on her lonely altars sprinkle
As a libation.
Horace Smith—Hymn to the Flowers.
Ye bright Mosaics! that with storied beauty,
The floor of Nature's temple tesselate,
What numerous emblems of instructive duty
Your forms create!
Horace Smith—Hymn to the Flowers.
Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere;
Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but sticketh nere;
Sweet is the firbloome, but its braunches rough;
Sweet is the cypress, but its rynd is tough;
Sweet is the nut, tut bitter is bis pill;
Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill.
Spenser—Amoretti. Sonnet XXVI.
Roses red and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew.
Spenser—Faerie Queene. Bk. III. Canto VI. St. 6.
The violets ope their purple heads;
The roses blow, the cowslip springs.
Swot—Answer to a Scandalous Poem. L. 150.
Primrose-eyes each morning ope
In their cool, deep beds of grass;
Violets make the air that pass
Tell-tales of their fragrant slope.
Bayard Taylor—Home and Travel, the Cloven Pine. L. 57.
The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks
A scarlet rain; the yellow violet
Sat in the chariot of its leaves; the phlox
Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet,
And all the streams with vernal-scented reed
Were fringed, and streaky bells of miskodeed.
Bayard Taylor—Home and Travel. Mon-Da-Min. St. 17.
With roses musky-breathed,
And drooping daffodilly,
And silver-leaved lily.
And ivy darkly-wreathed,
I wove a crown before her,
For her I love so dearly.
The gold-eyed kingcups fine,
The frail bluebell peereth over
Rare broidery of the purple clover.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sighed for the dawn and thee.
The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue;
And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes.
Thomson—The Seasons. Spring. L. 529.
Along the river's summer walk,
The withered tufts of asters nod;
And trembles on its arid stalk
The hoar plume of the golden-rod.
And on a ground of sombre fir,
And azure-studded juniper,
The silver birch its buds of purple shows,
And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose!
