Browne.
There is a flower, a little flower
With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.
Montgomery.
Heaven may awhile correct the virtuous,
Yet it will wipe their eyes again, and make
Their faces whiter with their tears. Innocence
Concealed is the stolen pleasure of the gods,
Which never ends in shame, as that of men
Doth oftentimes do; but like the sun breaks forth,
When it hath gratified another world;
And to our unexpecting eyes appears
More glorious through its late obscurity.
Periwinkle.... Tender Recollections.
In France, the Periwinkle has been adopted as the emblem of the pleasures of memory and sincere friendship, probably in allusion to Rousseau’s recollection of his friend, Madame de Warens, occasioned, after a lapse of thirty years, by the sight of this flower, which they together had admired. This plant is deeply rooted in the soil which it adorns. It throws out its shoots on all sides to clasp the earth, and covers it with flowers, which reflect the hue of heaven. Thus our first affections, warm, pure, and artless, seem to be of heavenly origin.
Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is delivered
To pain,—it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn;
They may torture, but shall not subdue me,—
’Tis of thee that I think, not of them.
Byron.
’Tis sweet, and yet ’tis sad, that gentle power,
Which throws in winter’s lap the spring-tide flower:
I love to dream of days my childhood knew,
When, with the sister of my heart, time flew
On wings of innocence and hope! dear hours,
When joy sprang up about our path, like flowers!