'T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower

Of faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind

Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,

And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Weak is the Will of Man.

Oh, call my brother back to me!

I cannot play alone:

The summer comes with flower and bee,—

Where is my brother gone?

John Keble (1792-1866): The Child's First Grief.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 14.

The bright consummate flower.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 481.

The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,

But in another country, as he said,

Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil;

Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain

Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 631.

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,

Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): To the Dandelion.

Death rides on every passing breeze,

He lurks in every flower.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826): At a Funeral. No. i.

And 't is my faith, that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines written in Early Spring.

Innumerable as the stars of night,

Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun

Impearls on every leaf and every flower.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 745.

How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower!

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Divine Songs. Song xx.

Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,

First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Remember Thee.

Nature, exerting an unwearied power,

Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;

Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads

The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Table Talk. Line 690.

With thee conversing I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change,—all please alike.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,

Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers; and sweet the coming on

Of grateful ev'ning mild; then silent night

With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,

And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:

But neither breath of morn when she ascends

With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun

On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,

Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,

Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night

With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon

Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 639.

Proserpine gathering flowers,

Herself a fairer flower.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 269.

And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it love-in-idleness.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Wearing all that weight

Of learning lightly like a flower.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. Conclusion. Stanza 10.

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.

How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold?

Because the lovely little flower is free

Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): A Poet! He hath put his Heart to School.

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;

Improve each moment as it flies!

Life's a short summer, man a flower;

He dies—alas! how soon he dies!

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Winter. An Ode.

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11.

Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower

Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour

Have passed away; less happy than the one

That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove

The tender charm of poetry and love.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Poems composed during a Tour in the Summer of 1833. xxxvii.

No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,

No arborett with painted blossoms drest

And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd

To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto vi. St. 12.

O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted,

Soft silken primrose fading timelessly.

John Milton (1608-1674): Ode on the Death of a fair Infant, dying of a Cough.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'ersways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet lxv.

O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted,

Soft silken primrose fading timelessly.

John Milton (1608-1674): Ode on the Death of a fair Infant, dying of a Cough.

O little booke, thou art so unconning,

How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): The Flower and the Leaf. Line 59.

She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,

Grows cold even in the summer of her age.

John Dryden (1631-1701): oedipus. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Soft is the music that would charm forever;

The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Not Love, not War.

The curious crime, the fine

Felicity and flower of wickedness.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 590.

This flour of wifly patience.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Clerkes Tale. Part v. Line 8797.

A flower, when offered in the bud,

Is no vain sacrifice.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Divine Songs. Song xii.

Fly not yet; 't is just the hour

When pleasure, like the midnight flower

That scorns the eye of vulgar light,

Begins to bloom for sons of night

And maids who love the moon.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Fly not yet.

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.

Come and trip it as ye go,

On the light fantastic toe.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 31.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying,

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): To the Virgins to make much of Time.

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.

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878): A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson.