Archive for The Gathering Place "The Gathering Place" is a web community where people can gather and make new friends, share ideas, enjoy a few laughs and learn about many interesting things together. It is a safe place where friends can correspond with each other about what they love.
This garden is my special place,
I love each bloom and pod;
The birdsong lifts my weary soul,
It's here I talk with God.
-- Ruth A. Ellinger
"Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone."...Thomas Moore
Flowers and fruits are always fit presents,--flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.
Wordsworth
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
William Blake
Violets
Under the green hedges, after the snow,
There do the dear little violets grow;
Hiding their modest and beautiful heads
Under the hawthorn in soft mossy beds.
Sweet as the roses and blue as the sky,
Down there do the dear little violets lie;
Hiding their heads where they scarce may be seen,
By the leaves you may know where the violet hath been.
John Moultrie (1799-1874)
The Amen! of Nature is always a flower.
O. W. Holmes
When Wordsworth's heart with pleasure filled at a crowd of golden daffodils,
it's a safe bet he didn't see them two weeks later.
Geoff Hamilton
Dark ages clasp the daisy root.
James Joyce
I feel really frightened when I sit down to paint a flower.
Henry Holman Hunt (1910)
More than anything, I must have flowers, always, always.
Claude Monet
Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile;
some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright,
like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.
Henry Ward Beecher
Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.
Goethe
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
Claude Monet
Flowers are Love's truest language; they betray,
Like the divining rods of Magi old,
Where precious wealth lies buried, not of gold,
But love--strong love, that never can decay!
- Park Benjamin, Sonnet--Flowers, Love's Truest Language
To create a little flower is the labor of ages.
- William Blake
Thick on the woodland floor
Gay company shall be,
Primrose and Hyacinth
And frail Anemone,
Perennial Strawberry-bloom,
Woodsorrel's pencilled veil,
Dishevel'd Willow-weed
And Orchis purple and pale.
- Robert Seymour Bridges, Idle Flowers
I have loved flowers that fade,
Within those magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents.
- Robert Seymour Bridges
Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.
- Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers--A Discourse of Flowers
And lilies are still lilies, pulled
By smutty hands, though spotted from their white.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (bk. III)
Brazen helm of daffodillies,
With a glitter toward the light.
Purple violets for the mouth,
Breathing perfumes west and south;
And a sword of flashing lilies,
Holden ready for the fight.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Hector in the Garden
Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead.
She wept tear after tear, with the blood which was shed,--
And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close;
Her tears, to the wind-flower,--his blood, to the rose.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lament for Adonis (st. 6)
The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks,
Held out in the smoke, like stars by day.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Soul's Travelling
Yet here's eglantine,
Here's ivy!--take them as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Trans. from the Portuguese (XLIV)
Where fall the tears of love the rose appears,
And where the ground is bright with friendship's tears,
Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue,
Spring glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.
- William Cullen Bryant, trans. of N. Muller's "Paradise of Tears"
The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchids died amid the summer glow;
But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the first from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland glade and glen.
- William Cullen Bryant, Death of the Flowers
Who that has loved knows not the tender tale
Which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell?
- Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton,
Corn Flowers--The First Violets
Mourn, little harebells, o'er the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see!
Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie
In scented bowers!
Ye roses on your thorny tree
The first o' flow'rs.
- Robert Burns, Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
The milkwhite is the slae.
- Robert Burns, Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots
The snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn,
And violets bathe in the wet o' the morn.
- Robert Burns, My Nanny's Awa
Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue?
And where is the violet's beautiful blue?
Does aught of its sweetness the blossom beguile?
That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile?
- John Byrom, A Pastoral (st.
Ye field flowers! the gardens eclipse you 'tis true:
Yet wildings of nature, I dote upon you,
For ye waft me to summers of old,
When the earth teem'd around me with fairy delight,
And when daisies and buttercups gladden'd my sight,
Like treasures of silver and gold.
- Thomas Campbell, Field Flowers
The berries of the brier rose
Have lost their rounded pride:
The bitter-sweet chrysanthemums
Are drooping heavy-eyed.
- Alice Cary, Faded Leaves
I know not which I love the most,
Nor which the comeliest shows,
The timid, bashful violet
Or the royal-hearted rose:
The pansy in purple dress,
The pink with cheek of red,
Or the faint, fair heliotrope, who hangs,
Like a bashful maid her head.
- Phoebe Cary, Spring Flowers
They know the time to go!
The fairy clocks strike their inaudible hour
In field and woodland, and each punctual flower
Bows at the signal an obedient head
And hastens to bed.
- Susan Coolidge (pseudonym of Sarah Chauncey Woolsey), Time to Go
God Almighty first planted a garden.
- Francis Bacon, Of Gardens
My garden plot is a lovesome thing--God wot!
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Fern grot--
The veriest school
Of peace; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not.--
Not God in gardens! When the sun is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign!
'Tis very sure God walks in mine.
- Thomas Edward Brown, My Garden
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
- Abraham Cowley
All gardens are a form of autobiography.
- Robert Dash
My garden is a forest ledge
Which older forests bound;
The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
Then plunge to depths profound!
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, My Garden (st. 3)
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
- Dorothy Frances Blomfield Gurney, God's Garden
An album is a garden, not for show
Planted, but use; where wholesome herbs should grow.
- Charles Lamb (used pseudonym Elia), In an Album to a Clergyman's Lady
I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
- Amy Lowell, Patterns
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.
- John Milton, Il Pensoroso (l. 49)
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suff'ring eye inverted nature sees,
Trees cut in statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain never to be play'd,
And there a summer-house that knows no shade.
- Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (ep. IV, l. 117)
A little garden square and wall'd;
And in it throve an ancient evergreen,
A yew-tree, and all round it ran a walk
Of shingle, and a walk divided it.
- Lord Alfred Tennyson, Enoch Arden (l. 731)
The garden lies,
A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream.
- Lord Alfred Tennyson, Gardener's Daughter (l. 40)
Come into the garden. Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown.
- Lord Alfred Tennyson, Maud (XXII, 1)
The splash and stir
Of fountains spouted up and showering down
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose:
And all about us peal'd the nightingale,
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare.
- Lord Alfred Tennyson, Princess (pt. I, l. 214)
What a man needs in gardening is a cast iron back, with a hinge in it.
- Charles Dudley Warner
A little garden Little Jowett made,
And fenced it with a little palisade;
If you would know the mine of little Jowett,
This little garden don't a little show it.
- Francis Wrangham, Epigram on Dr. Joseph Jowett
Sweet letters of the angel tongue,
I've loved ye long and well,
And never have failed in your fragrance sweet
To find some secret spell,--
A charm that has bound me with witching power,
For mine is the old belief,
That midst your sweets and midst your bloom,
There's a soul in every leaf!
- Mathurin M. Ballou, Flowers
The happy bells shall ring Marguerite;
The summer birds shall sing Marguerite;
You smile but you shall wear
Orange blossoms in your hair, Marguerite.
- Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Wedded
"May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers."...Thich Nhat Hanh
"The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose."
"Perennials are the ones that grow like weeds, biennials are the ones that die this year instead of next, and hardy annuals are the ones that never come up at all."...Katherine Whitehorn, Observations (1970)
"The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life."...Jean Giraudoux, The Enchanted (1933)
"There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords."...John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916)
"And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with daffodils."...William Wordsworth
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."...William Wordsworth
"Flowers are love's truest language."...Park Benjamin
"Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the season."...Kahlil Gibran
"It is at the edge of a petal that love awaits."...William Carlos Williams
"An artist is not paid for his labor, but for his vision."...James McNeil Whistler
"The rose speaks silently of love, in a language known only to the heart."...Unknown
"Life is the flower for which love is the honey."...Victor Hugo
"Flowers are words which even a baby can understand."...Arthur C. Coxe
"The only rose without thorns is friendship."...Unknown
"Flowers are my music."...Sir Thomas Arnold, d, 1842
"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment."...Georgia O'Keefe, New York Post (1946)
"I've always thought my flowers had souls."...Myrtle Reed, Lavender and Old Lace (1902)
"Happiness held is a seed. Happiness shared is the flower."...anonymous
"Don't grumble that roses have thorns, be thankful that thorns have roses."
"Earth laughs in flower" .. Ralph Waldo Emerson
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.."
...William Shakespeare
The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly.
...Ecouchard Le Brun
Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.
Henry Beecher (1858)
Hurrah!...it is a frost!--the dahlias are dead.
R. S. Surtees (1843)
Earth laughs in flowers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Walt Whitman
God's Warrior
The Sunflower
Ah! Sunflower
The Sunflower
Ah, Sunflower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime,
Where the traveler's journey is done;
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!
William Blake (1757-1827)
There is nothing very beautiful about the sunflower; but I am told that it bends toward the sun, which is strange and rather appealing. Sei Shonagon (Tenth Century)
God's Warrior
ROSES
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
Bible Song of Solomon (ch. II, v.
Roses
George Eliot (1819-1880)
You love the roses--so do I.
I wish the sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush.
Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet: and it would be
Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once.
A rose may be in bloom only a short time but its beauty can last in our thoughts forever.
A pale rose is a smell that has no fountain; that has upside down the same distinction;
There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Theophrastus...calleth the Rose the light of the earth, the faire bushie toppe of the spring,the fire of love, the lightning of the land. John Parkinson (1640)
Roses do comfort the heart.
William Langham (1579)
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Gertrude Stein
Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
Author: William Cullen Bryant
The rose that all are praising
Is not the rose for me.
Thomas Haynes Bayly
Go pretty rose, go to my fair,
Go tell her all I fain would dare,
Tell her of hope; tell her of spring,
Tell her of all I fain would sing,
Oh! were I like thee, so fair a thing.
Michael Beverly
He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses.
Author: Bidpai (Pilpay)
There is no gathering the rose without being pricked by the thorns.
Author: Bidpai (Pilpay)
'Twas a yellow rose,
By that south window of the little house,
My cousin Romney gathered with his hand
On all my birthdays, for me. save the last;
And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough,
For roses to stay after.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
O rose, who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet,
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubblewheat,--
Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
Author: William Cullen Bryant
I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phoebus peeps in view,
For its like a baumy kiss o'er her sweet bonnie mou'!
Robert Burns
Yon rose-buds in the morning-dew,
How pure amang the leaves sae green!
Robert Burns
I wish I might a rose-bud grow
And thou wouldst cull me from the bower.
To place me on that breast of snow
Where I should bloom a wintry flower.
Rose Terry Cooke
God's Warrior
Lilacs
Lilacs
Poetry of Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass
[BOOK XXII. MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN]
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar-making,
The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate,
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts,
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen'd--the restlessness after I know not what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
To glide with thee O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters;
Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the
morning drops of dew,
The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,
Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To grace the bush I love--to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of returning in reminiscence.
Upon a Lilac Sea
Emily Elizabeth Dickenson
Upon a Lilac Sea
To toss incessantly
His Plush Alarm
Who fleeing from the Spring
The Spring avenging fling
To Dooms of Balm
Warble Of Lilac-Time
Walt Whitman
WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time,
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature's sake, and sweet life's
sake--and death's the same as life's,
Souvenirs of earliest summer--birds' eggs, and the first berries;
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells
Put in April and May--the hylas croaking in the ponds--the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird, and darting swallow--nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,
Shimmer of waters, with fish in them--the cerulean above;
All that is jocund and sparkling--the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;
The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;
The melted snow of March--the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts;
--For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, Soul, unloosen'd--the restlessness after I know not what;
Come! let us lag here no longer--let us be up and away!
O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird! 20
O to escape--to sail forth, as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O Soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the
waters!
--Gathering these hints, these preludes--the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew;
(With additional songs--every spring will I now strike up additional songs,
Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)
The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To tally, drench'd with them, tested by them,
Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes, 30
My mind henceforth, and all its meditations--my recitatives,
My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,
(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)
To grace the bush I love--to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of Lilac-time.
God's Warrior
The Daisy
Daisy Time
Marjorie Pickthall
See, the grass is full of stars,
Fallen in their brightness;
Hearts they have of shining gold,
Rays of shining whiteness.
Buttercups have honeyed hearts,
Bees they love the clover,
But I love the daisies' dance
All the meadow over.
Blow, O blow, you happy winds,
Singing summer's praises,
Up the field and down the field
A-dancing with the daisies.
