WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLOWER?
I would I had some flowers of the Spring that might
Become your time of day; and yours;—and yours.
Winter's Tale.
I send thee flowers, oh dearest, and I deem
That from their petals thou wilt hear sweet words,
Whose music, sweeter than the voice of birds,
When breathed to thee alone, perchance may seem
All eloquent of feelings unexpress'd.
Park Benjamin.
A garland lay him by, made by himself
Of many several flowers,
Stuck in that mystic order that the rareness
Delighted me.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLOWER?
The sensitive plant, the earliest
Up-gathered unto the bosom of rest,
A sweet child, weary of its delight,
The feeblest, and yet the favorite,
Cradled within the embrace of night.
Shelley.
2. The jasmine;
Pride of Carolina's early Spring!
Fairy land
Is not more beautiful, than when, full blown,
The jasmine, gilt by the Creator's hand,
Hangs all around us.
Mrs. Dana.
3. Hyacinths, ringing their soft bells
To call the bees from the anemonies,
Jealous of their bright rivals' glowing wealth.
Miss Landon.
4. Primroses,
Which, when the lengthen'd shadows fall
Like soft dreams o'er the earth,
And all around a sabbath reigns
As at creation's birth,
Burst the magic bands of clay,
And greet with smiles the sun's last ray.
Miss M. E. Lee.
5. The chaste camelia's pure and spotless bloom,
That boasts no fragrance, and conceals no thorn.
W. Roscoe.
6. The light snowdrops, which, starting from their cells,
Hang each pagoda with their silver bells.
O. W. Holmes.
7. A tulip, which Titania may have chosen
For rest or revelry, to feast or doze in.
Miss Moise.
8. Roses,
Beautiful each, but different all;
One with that pure but crimson flush,
That marks a maiden's first love blush;
One,
Pale as the snow of the funeral stone;
Another, rich as the damask die
Of a monarch's purple drapery;
And one hath leaves like the leaves of gold
Worked on that drapery's royal fold.
Miss Landon.
9. The hare-bell on the heath,
The forest tree beneath,
Which springs like elfin dweller of the wild;
Light as a breeze astir
Stemm'd with the gossamer,
Soft as the blue eyes of a poet's child.
Mary Howitt.
10. Thou sweet daisy, common-place
Of nature, with that homely face,
And yet, with something of a grace,
Which love makes for thee!
Wordsworth.
11. The good old passion-flower!
It bringeth to thy mind
The young days of the Christian church,
Dim ages left behind.
Mary Howitt.
12. Sweet peas on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers, catching at all things,
To bind them round about with tiny rings.
Keats.
13. Heart's ease. One could look for half a day
Upon this flower, and shape in fancy out
Full twenty different tales of love and sorrow,
That gave this gentle name.
Mary Howitt.
14. The humble rosemary,
Whose sweets so thanklessly are shed
To scent the dead.
Moore.
15. The primrose, all bepearl'd with dew,
So yellow, green, and richly too.
Ask you why the stalk is weak,
And bending, yet it doth not break?
I must tell you these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.
Carew.
16. Those greater far than all
Our blessed Lord did see,
The lilies beautiful, which grew
In the fields of Galilee!
Mary Howitt.
17. A little flower, which
Before the bolt of Cupid fell milk-white,
Now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Midsummer Night's Dream.
18. The lilac, various in array—now white,
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unresolved
Which hue she most approved, she chose them all.
Cowper.
19. King-cup, with its canary hue;
'Twas from this goblet Psyche drew
The nectar for her butterflies.
Miss Moise.
20. Jasmine, with her pale stars shining through
The myrtle darkness of her leaf's green hue.
Mrs. Norton.
21. The water-lilies, that glide so pale,
As if with constant care
Of the treasures which they bear;
For those ivory vases hold
Each a sunny gift of gold.
Miss Landon.
22. Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares,
And take the winds of March with beauty.
Winter's Tale.
23. Sweet wild-flowers, that hold their quiet talk
Upon the uncultured green.
Mrs. Gilman.
24. The virgin lilies in their white,
Clad but with the lawn of almost naked white.
Cowley.
25. The hyacinth, for constancy, wi' its unchanging blue.
Burns.
26. Blue pelloret, from purple leaves up-slanting
A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden,
Shining beneath dropp'd lids, the evening of her wedding.
Drake.
27. A tulip just open'd, offering to hold
A butterfly gaudy and gay,
Or rocking its cradle of crimson and gold,
Where the careless young slumberer lay.
Miss Gould.
28. She comes—the first, the fairest thing
That heaven upon the earth doth fling,
Ere winter's star has set;
She dwells behind her leafy screen,
And gives as angels give—unseen,—
The violet!
Barry Cornwall.
29. The rich magnolia,
High priestess of the flowers, whose censer fills
The air.
Mrs. Sigourney.
30. Cereus,
Who wastes on night's dull eye a blaze of charms.
Darwin.
31. The scarlet creeper's bloom,
When 'midst her leaves the humbird's varying dyes
Sparkle like half-seen fairy eyes.
Dr. S. H. Dickson.
32. You love the sweet Geranium's smell,
Its scollop'd leaves, and crimson flower;
Of days long passed it seems to tell,
And memory owns its magic power.
Miss Maria James.
33. The wayside weed of homeliest hue,
Looking erect up to the golden blue.
For thus it speaketh to the thinking mind—
"O'erlook me not: I for a purpose grew;
On us one sunshine falls!"
Thomas Miller.
34. The last violet
That sheds its fragrance on the chill, damp air
Of a November morn, like love in death.
Lady Flora Hastings.
35. The peony, with drooping head,
Which blows a transient hour,
And gently shaken in the breeze,
Descends a crimson shower.
Miss Maria James.
36. The blue fleur-de-lis, in the warm sunlight shining,
As if grains of gold in its petals were set.
Mary Howitt.
37. The pale and delicate narcissus' flowers,
Bending so languidly, as still they found
In the pure wave a love and destiny.
Miss Landon.
38. The violet's azure eye,
Which gazes on the sky,
Until its hue grows like what it beholds.
Shelley.
39. The evening primrose,
O'er which the wind might gladly take a pleasant sleep,
But that 'tis ever startled by the leap
Of buds into fresh flowers.
Keats.
40. The clematis, all graceful and fair;
You may set it like pearls in the folds of your hair.
Mrs. A. M. Wells.
41. The tulip,
Whose passionate leaves with their ruby glow
Hide the heart that is burning and black below.
Miss Landon.
42. The almond, though its branch is sere,
With myriad blossoms beautiful;
As pink, as is the shell's inside.
Mary Howitt.
43. Lilies for a bridal bed,
Roses for a matron's head,
Violets for a maiden dead—
Pansies let thy flower be.
Shelley.
44. The barberry-bush,
Whose yellow blossoms hang,
As when a child by grassy lane
Along you lightly sprang.
Mrs. Gilman.
45. The shower
Wets not a rose that buds in beauty's bower
One half so lovely as the sweet brier;
——for it grows along
The poor man's pathway, by the poor man's door.
Brainerd.
46. The low dwarf acacia, that droops as it grows,
And the leaves, as you gather them, tremble and close.
Mrs. A. M. Wells.
47. The cowslip, that, bending
With its golden bells,
Of each glad hour's ending,
With a sweet chime tells.
Miss Landon.
48. The beautiful clover, so round and red;
There is not a thing in twenty,
That lifts in the morning so sweet a head,
Above its leaves on its earthly bed,
With so many horns of plenty.
Miss H. F. Gould.
49. A lily flower,
The old Egyptian's emblematic mark
Of joy immortal, and of pure affection.
Wordsworth.
50. Mignionette the little nun,
In meekness shedding soft perfume.
Miss P. Moise.
51. The heliotrope, whose gray and heavy wreath
Mimics the orchard blossom's fruity breath.
Mrs. Norton.
52. The timid jasmine-buds, that keep
Their odors to themselves all day,
But when the sunlight dies away,
Let the delicious secret out.
Moore.
53. Violets dim,
but sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
or Cytherea's breath.
Winter's Tale.
54. Fox-glove, whose purple vest conceals
Its hollow heart.
Miss Moise.
55. The housatonia cerulea,
Its snowy circle ray'd
With crosslets, bending its pearly whiteness round,
While the spreading lips are bound
With such a mellow shade,
As in the vaulted blue
Deepens at midnight, or grows pale
When mantled in the full moon's slender veil.
Percival.
56. The lily,
Imperial beauty, fair unrivall'd one!
What flower of earth has honor high as thine,
To find thy name on His unsullied lips
Whose eye was light from heaven!
Miss H. F. Gould.
57. The little windflower, whose just open'd eye
Is blue as the Spring heaven it gazes at;
Startling the loiterer in naked paths
With unexpected beauty.
W. C. Bryant.
58. The trailing arbutus, shrouding its grace,
Till fragrance bewrayeth its hiding-place.
Mrs. Sigourney.
59. The woodbine wild,
That loves to hang on barren boughs remote
Her wreaths of flowery perfume.
W. Mason—The English Garden.
60. The Naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green.
Shelley.