[ { "title": "The Picture Of Little T.C. In A Prospect Of Flowers", "author": "Andrew Marvell", "lines": [ "See with what simplicity", "This Nimph begins her golden daies!", "In the green Grass she loves to lie,", "And there with her fair Aspect tames", "The Wilder flow'rs, and gives them names:", "But only with the Roses playes;", "And them does tell", "What Colour best becomes them, and what Smell.", "", "Who can foretel for what high cause", "This Darling of the Gods was born!", "Yet this is She whose chaster Laws", "The wanton Love shall one day fear,", "And, under her command severe,", "See his Bow broke and Ensigns torn.", "Happy, who can", "Appease this virtuous Enemy of Man!", "", "O then let me in time compound,", "And parly with those conquering Eyes;", "Ere they have try'd their force to wound,", "Ere, with their glancing wheels, they drive", "In Triumph over Hearts that strive,", "And them that yield but more despise.", "Let me be laid,", "Where I may see thy Glories from some Shade.", "", "Mean time, whilst every verdant thing", "It self does at thy Beauty charm,", "Reform the errours of the Spring;", "Make that the Tulips may have share", "Of sweetness, seeing they are fair;", "And Roses of their thorns disarm:", "But most procure", "That Violets may a longer Age endure.", "", "But O young beauty of the Woods,", "Whom Nature courts with fruits and flow'rs,", "Gather the Flow'rs, but spare the Buds;", "Lest Flora angry at thy crime,", "To kill her Infants in their prime,", "Do quickly make th' Example Yours;", "And, ere we see,", "Nip in the blossome all our hopes and Thee." ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Sonnet 44 - Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers", "Plucked in the garden, all the summer through", "And winter, and it seemed as if they grew", "In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.", "So, in the like name of that love of ours,", "Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,", "And which on warm and cold days I withdrew", "From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers", "Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,", "And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine,", "Here 's ivy!—take them, as I used to do", "Thy fowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.", "Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true,", "And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "I tend my flowers for thee", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "I tend my flowers for thee --", "Bright Absentee!", "My Fuchsia's Coral Seams", "Rip -- while the Sower -- dreams --", "", "Geraniums -- tint -- and spot --", "Low Daisies -- dot --", "My Cactus -- splits her Beard", "To show her throat --", "", "Carnations -- tip their spice --", "And Bees -- pick up --", "A Hyacinth -- I hid --", "Puts out a Ruffled Head --", "And odors fall", "From flasks -- so small --", "You marvel how they held --", "", "Globe Roses -- break their satin glake --", "Upon my Garden floor --", "Yet -- thou -- not there --", "I had as lief they bore", "No Crimson -- more --", "", "Thy flower -- be gay --", "Her Lord -- away!", "It ill becometh me --", "I'll dwell in Calyx -- Gray --", "How modestly -- alway --", "Thy Daisy --", "Draped for thee!" ], "linecount": "27" }, { "title": "How many Flowers fail in Wood", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "How many Flowers fail in Wood --", "Or perish from the Hill --", "Without the privilege to know", "That they are Beautiful --", "", "How many cast a nameless Pod", "Upon the nearest Breeze --", "Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight --", "It bear to Other Eyes --" ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "The Veins of other Flowers", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "The Veins of other Flowers", "The Scarlet Flowers are", "Till Nature leisure has for Terms", "As \"Branch,\" and \"Jugular.\"", "", "We pass, and she abides.", "We conjugate Her Skill", "While She creates and federates", "Without a syllable." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Flowers -- Well -- if anybody", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "Flowers -- Well -- if anybody", "Can the ecstasy define --", "Half a transport -- half a trouble --", "With which flowers humble men:", "Anybody find the fountain", "From which floods so contra flow --", "I will give him all the Daisies", "Which upon the hillside blow.", "", "Too much pathos in their faces", "For a simple breast like mine --", "Butterflies from St. Domingo", "Cruising round the purple line --", "Have a system of aesthetics --", "Far superior to mine." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews,", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews,", "But never deemed the dripping prize", "Awaited their -- low Brows --", "Or Bees -- that thought the Summer's name", "Some rumor of Delirium,", "No Summer -- could -- for Them --", "", "Or Arctic Creatures, dimly stirred --", "By Tropic Hint -- some Travelled Bird", "Imported to the Wood --", "", "Or Wind's bright signal to the Ear --", "Making that homely, and severe,", "Contented, known, before --", "", "The Heaven -- unexpected come,", "To Lives that thought the Worshipping", "A too presumptuous Psalm --" ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "If the foolish, call them \"flowers\"", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "If the foolish, call them \"flowers\" --", "Need the wiser, tell?", "If the Savants \"Classify\" them", "It is just as well!", "", "Those who read the \"Revelations\"", "Must not criticize", "Those who read the same Edition --", "With beclouded Eyes!", "", "Could we stand with that Old \"Moses\" --", "\"Canaan\" denied --", "Scan like him, the stately landscape", "On the other side --", "", "Doubtless, we should deem superfluous", "Many Sciences,", "Not pursued by learned Angels", "In scholastic skies!", "", "Low amid that glad Belles lettres", "Grant that we may stand,", "Stars, amid profound Galaxies --", "At that grand \"Right hand\"!" ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Flowers", "author": "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow", "lines": [ "Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,", "One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,", "When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,", "Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.", "", "Stars they are, wherein we read our history,", "As astrologers and seers of eld;", "Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,", "Like the burning stars, which they beheld.", "", "Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,", "God hath written in those stars above;", "But not less in the bright flowerets under us", "Stands the revelation of his love.", "", "Bright and glorious is that revelation,", "Written all over this great world of ours;", "Making evident our own creation,", "In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.", "", "And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,", "Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part", "Of the self-same, universal being,", "Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.", "", "Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,", "Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,", "Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,", "Buds that open only to decay;", "", "Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,", "Flaunting gayly in the golden light;", "Large desires, with most uncertain issues,", "Tender wishes, blossoming at night!", "", "", "These in flowers and men are more than seeming;", "Workings are they of the self-same powers,", "Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,", "Seeth in himself and in the flowers.", "", "Everywhere about us are they glowing,", "Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;", "Others, their blue eyes with tears o'er-flowing,", "Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;", "", "Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,", "And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,", "But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,", "In the centre of his brazen shield;", "", "Not alone in meadows and green alleys,", "On the mountain-top, and by the brink", "Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,", "Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;", "", "Not alone in her vast dome of glory,", "Not on graves of bird and beast alone,", "But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,", "On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;", "", "In the cottage of the rudest peasant,", "In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,", "Speaking of the Past unto the Present,", "Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;", "", "In all places, then, and in all seasons,", "Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,", "Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,", "How akin they are to human things.", "", "And with childlike, credulous affection", "We behold their tender buds expand;", "Emblems of our own great resurrection,", "Emblems of the bright and better land." ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "The Reaper and the Flowers", "author": "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow", "lines": [ "There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,", "And, with his sickle keen,", "He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,", "And the flowers that grow between.", "", "\"Shall I have naught that is fair?\" saith he;", "\"Have naught but the bearded grain?", "Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,", "I will give them all back again.\"", "", "He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,", "He kissed their drooping leaves;", "It was for the Lord of Paradise", "He bound them in his sheaves.", "", "\"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,\"", "The Reaper said, and smiled;", "\"Dear tokens of the earth are they,", "Where he was once a child.", "", "\"They shall all bloom in fields of light,", "Transplanted by my care,", "And saints, upon their garments white,", "These sacred blossoms wear.\"", "", "And the mother gave, in tears and pain,", "The flowers she most did love;", "She knew she should find them all again", "In the fields of light above.", "", "O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,", "The Reaper came that day;", "'T was an angel visited the green earth,", "And took the flowers away." ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "Flowers in Winter", "author": "John Greenleaf Whittier", "lines": [ "How strange to greet, this frosty morn,", "In graceful counterfeit of flower,", "These children of the meadows, born", "Of sunshine and of showers!", "", "How well the conscious wood retains", "The pictures of its flower-sown home,", "The lights and shades, the purple stains,", "And golden hues of bloom!", "", "It was a happy thought to bring", "To the dark season's frost and rime", "This painted memory of spring,", "This dream of summertime.", "", "Our hearts are lighter for its sake,", "Our fancy's age renews its youth,", "And dim-remembered fictions take", "The guise of present truth.", "", "A wizard of the Merrimac, -", "So old ancestral legends say, -", "Could call green leaf and blossom back", "To frosted stem and spray.", "", "The dry logs of the cottage wall,", "Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;", "The clay-bound swallow, at his call,", "Played round the icy eaves.", "", "The settler saw his oaken flail", "Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;", "From frozen pools he saw the pale", "Sweet summer lilies rise.", "", "To their old homes, by man profaned", "Came the sad dryads, exiled long,", "And through their leafy tongues complained", "Of household use and wrong.", "", "The beechen platter sprouted wild,", "The pipkin wore its old-time green,", "The cradle o'er the sleeping child", "Became a leafy screen.", "", "Haply our gentle friend hath met,", "While wandering in her sylvan quest,", "Haunting his native woodlands yet,", "That Druid of the West;", "", "And while the dew on leaf and flower", "Glistened in the moonlight clear and still,", "Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power,", "And caught his trick of skill.", "", "But welcome, be it new or old,", "The gift which makes the day more bright,", "And paints, upon the ground of cold", "And darkness, warmth and light!", "", "Without is neither gold nor green;", "Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;", "Yet, summer-like, we sit between", "The autumn and the spring.", "", "The one, with bridal blush of rose,", "And sweetest breath of woodland balm,", "And one whose matron lips unclose", "In smiles of saintly calm.", "", "Fill soft and deep, O winter snow!", "The sweet azalea's oaken dells,", "And hide the banks where roses blow", "And swing the azure bells!", "", "O'erlay the amber violet's leaves,", "The purple aster's brookside home,", "Guard all the flowers her pencil gives", "A live beyond their bloom.", "", "And she, when spring comes round again,", "By greening slope and singing flood", "Shall wander, seeking, not in vain", "Her darlings of the wood." ], "linecount": "68" }, { "title": "264. Song—On a Bank of Flowers", "author": "Robert Burns", "lines": [ "ON a bank of flowers, in a summer day,", " For summer lightly drest,", "The youthful, blooming Nelly lay,", " With love and sleep opprest;", "When Willie, wand’ring thro’ the wood,", "Who for her favour oft had sued;", " He gaz’d, he wish’d", " He fear’d, he blush’d,", "And trembled where he stood.", "", "", "Her closèd eyes, like weapons sheath’d,", " Were seal’d in soft repose;", "Her lip, still as she fragrant breath’d,", " It richer dyed the rose;", "The springing lilies, sweetly prest,", "Wild-wanton kissed her rival breast;", " He gaz’d, he wish’d,", " He mear’d, he blush’d,", "His bosom ill at rest.", "", "", "Her robes, light-waving in the breeze,", " Her tender limbs embrace;", "Her lovely form, her native ease,", " All harmony and grace;", "Tumultuous tides his pulses roll,", "A faltering, ardent kiss he stole;", " He gaz’d, he wish’d,", " He fear’d, he blush’d,", "And sigh’d his very soul.", "", "", "As flies the partridge from the brake,", " On fear-inspired wings,", "So Nelly, starting, half-awake,", " Away affrighted springs;", "But Willie follow’d-as he should,", "He overtook her in the wood;", " He vow’d, he pray’d,", " He found the maid", "Forgiving all, and good." ], "linecount": "36" }, { "title": "WHY FLOWERS CHANGE COLOUR", "author": "Robert Herrick", "lines": [ "These fresh beauties, we can prove,", "Once were virgins, sick of love,", "Turn'd to flowers: still in some,", "Colours go and colours come." ], "linecount": "4" }, { "title": "THE APRON OF FLOWERS", "author": "Robert Herrick", "lines": [ "To gather flowers, Sappha went,", "And homeward she did bring", "Within her lawny continent,", "The treasure of the Spring.", "", "She smiling blush'd, and blushing smiled,", "And sweetly blushing thus,", "She look'd as she'd been got with child", "By young Favonius.", "", "Her apron gave, as she did pass,", "An odour more divine,", "More pleasing too, than ever was", "The lap of Proserpine." ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "The Flowers", "author": "Robert Louis Stevenson", "lines": [ "All the names I know from nurse:", "Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,", "Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,", "And the Lady Hollyhock.", "", "Fairy places, fairy things,", "Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,", "Tiny trees for tiny dames--", "These must all be fairy names!", "", "Tiny woods below whose boughs", "Shady fairies weave a house;", "Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,", "Where the braver fairies climb!", "", "Fair are grown-up people's trees,", "But the fairest woods are these;", "Where, if I were not so tall,", "I should live for good and all." ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "The trees in the garden rained flowers.", "author": "Stephen Crane", "lines": [ "The trees in the garden rained flowers.", "Children ran there joyously.", "They gathered the flowers", "Each to himself.", "Now there were some", "Who gathered great heaps --", "Having opportunity and skill --", "Until, behold, only chance blossoms", "Remained for the feeble.", "Then a little spindling tutor", "Ran importantly to the father, crying:", "\"Pray, come hither!", "See this unjust thing in your garden!\"", "But when the father had surveyed,", "He admonished the tutor:", "\"Not so, small sage!", "This thing is just.", "For, look you,", "Are not they who possess the flowers", "Stronger, bolder, shrewder", "Than they who have none?", "Why should the strong --", "The beautiful strong --", "Why should they not have the flowers?\"", "Upon reflection, the tutor bowed to the ground,", "\"My lord,\" he said,", "\"The stars are displaced", "By this towering wisdom.\"" ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "Flowers", "author": "Thomas Hood", "lines": [ "I will not have the mad Clytie,", "Whose head is turned by the sun;", "The tulip is a courtly queen,", "Whom, therefore, I will shun;", "The cowslip is a country wench,", "The violet is a nun; -", "But I will woo the dainty rose,", "The queen of everyone.", "", "The pea is but a wanton witch,", "In too much haste to wed,", "And clasps her rings on every hand", "The wolfsbane I should dread; -", "Nor will I dreary rosemary", "That always mourns the dead; -", "But I will woo the dainty rose,", "With her cheeks of tender red.", "", "The lily is all in white, like a saint,", "And so is no mate for me -", "And the daisy's cheek is tipped with blush,", "She is of such low degree;", "Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves,", "And the broom's betrothed to the bee; -", "But I will plight with the dainty rose,", "For fairest of all is she." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Wayside Flowers", "author": "William Allingham", "lines": [ "Pluck not the wayside flower,", "It is the traveller's dower;", "A thousand passers-by", "Its beauties may espy,", "May win a touch of blessing", "From Nature's mild caressing.", "The sad of heart perceives", "A violet under leaves", "Like sonic fresh-budding hope;", "The primrose on the slope", "A spot of sunshine dwells,", "And cheerful message tells", "Of kind renewing power;", "The nodding bluebell's dye", "Is drawn from happy sky.", "Then spare the wayside flower!", "It is the traveller's dower." ], "linecount": "17" }, { "title": "The Death of the Flowers", "author": "William Cullen Bryant", "lines": [ "The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,", "Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.", "Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;", "They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread;", "The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,", "And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.", "", "Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood", "In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?", "Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers", "Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.", "The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain", "Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.", "", "The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,", "And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;", "But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,", "And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,", "Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,", "And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.", "", "And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,", "To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;", "When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,", "And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,", "The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,", "And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.", "", "And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,", "The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.", "In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,", "And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:", "Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,", "So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers." ], "linecount": "30" }, { "title": "The Fear of Flowers", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "The nodding oxeye bends before the wind,", "The woodbine quakes lest boys their flowers should find,", "And prickly dogrose spite of its array", "Can't dare the blossom-seeking hand away,", "While thistles wear their heavy knobs of bloom", "Proud as a warhorse wears its haughty plume,", "And by the roadside danger's self defy;", "On commons where pined sheep and oxen lie", "In ruddy pomp and ever thronging mood", "It stands and spreads like danger in a wood,", "And in the village street where meanest weeds", "Can't stand untouched to fill their husks with seeds,", "The haughty thistle oer all danger towers,", "In every place the very wasp of flowers." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Matilda Gathering Flowers", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "FROM THE PURGATORIO OF DANTE, CANTO 28, LINES 1-51.", "", "And earnest to explore within--around--", "The divine wood, whose thick green living woof", "Tempered the young day to the sight--I wound", "", "Up the green slope, beneath the forest's roof,", "With slow, soft steps leaving the mountain's steep,", "And sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof", "", "Against the air, that in that stillness deep", "And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare,", "The slow, soft stroke of a continuous...", "", "In which the ... leaves tremblingly were", "All bent towards that part where earliest", "The sacred hill obscures the morning air.", "", "Yet were they not so shaken from the rest,", "But that the birds, perched on the utmost spray,", "Incessantly renewing their blithe quest,", "", "With perfect joy received the early day,", "Singing within the glancing leaves, whose sound", "Kept a low burden to their roundelay,", "", "Such as from bough to bough gathers around", "The pine forest on bleak Chiassi's shore,", "When Aeolus Sirocco has unbound.", "", "My slow steps had already borne me o'er", "Such space within the antique wood, that I", "Perceived not where I entered any more,--", "", "When, lo! a stream whose little waves went by,", "Bending towards the left through grass that grew", "Upon its bank, impeded suddenly", "", "My going on. Water of purest hue", "On earth, would appear turbid and impure", "Compared with this, whose unconcealing dew,", "", "Dark, dark, yet clear, moved under the obscure", "Eternal shades, whose interwoven looms", "The rays of moon or sunlight ne'er endure.", "", "I moved not with my feet, but mid the glooms", "Pierced with my charmed eye, contemplating", "The mighty multitude of fresh May blooms", "", "Which starred that night, when, even as a thing", "That suddenly, for blank astonishment,", "Charms every sense, and makes all thought take wing,--", "", "A solitary woman! and she went", "Singing and gathering flower after flower,", "With which her way was painted and besprent.", "", "'Bright lady, who, if looks had ever power", "To bear true witness of the heart within,", "Dost bask under the beams of love, come lower", "", "Towards this bank. I prithee let me win", "This much of thee, to come, that I may hear", "Thy song: like Proserpine, in Enna's glen,", "", "Thou seemest to my fancy, singing here", "And gathering flowers, as that fair maiden when", "She lost the Spring, and Ceres her, more dear." ], "linecount": "52" }, { "title": "Song of Proserpine While Gathering Flowers on the Plain of Enna", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,", "Thou from whose immortal bosom", "Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,", "Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,", "Breathe thine influence most divine", "On thine own child, Proserpine.", "", "If with mists of evening dew", "Thou dost nourish these young flowers", "Till they grow, in scent and hue,", "Fairest children of the Hours,", "Breathe thine influence most divine", "On thine own child, Proserpine." ], "linecount": "12" } ]