SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare loved the herb garden and knew quite well about all the
plants that grew there.
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the wild violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious
woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."
-A Midsummer Night's Dream
"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;
pray you, love, remember."
-Hamlet
"For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long;
Grace and remembrance be to you both."
-The Winter's Tale
Shakespeare's name for a pansy was "Love-in-idleness" It is still
used in parts of England and means "love in vain".
"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."
-A Midsummer Night's Dream
Violet's grew and probably still grow in the woods near Shakespeare's
home. They are often associated with sadness and death.
Laertes in Hamlet says:
"A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet,, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more."
One of the saddest lines referring to violets, is spoken by Ophelia:
"...I would give you some violets, but they
withered all when my father died."
"...I think the king is but a man, as I am;
the violet smells to him as it doth to me."
-Henry V
"That strain again! It had a dying fall;
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour."
-Twelfth Night
"Crab", is the name given to the crabapple in Shakespeare's time.
"Roasted crab" in a bowl of ale was a popular Christmas dish.
"And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob."
-A Midsummer Night's Dream
"When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight."
-Love's Labour's Lost
ROBERT FROST
"The rose is a rose
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose,
You, of course, are a rose-
But were always a rose."
"...And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And of a blossom in mid-air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill."
-A Prayer in Spring
WALT WHITMAN
From Leaves of Grass, this tribute to President Lincoln is linked to a poignant
evocation of lilac:
"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love."
And this is one of the most vivid visual images in poetry:
"In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd
palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I
love,
With every leaf a miracle - and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.
-Leaves of Grass
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
"Red roses, used to praises long,
Contented with the poet's song,
The nightingales being over;
And lilies white, prepared to touch
The whitest thought, nor soil it much,
Of dreamer turned to lover.
Deep violets, you liken to
The kindest eyes that look on you.
Without a thought disloyal;
And cactuses a queen might don,
If weary of a golden crown,
And still appear as royal."...
from A Flower in a Letter
"If Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the rose and would royally crown it,
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it.
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair, -
Is the lightening of beauty, that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.
Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the world,
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the Wind as it laughs from the west.
-Song of the Rose
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"O such a commotion under the ground,
When March called, "Ho there! ho!"
Such spreading of rootlets far and wide,
Such whisperings to and fro!
"Are you ready?" the Snowdrop asked,
"Tis time to start, you know."
Almost, my dear!" the Scilla replied,
"I'll follow as soon as you go."
Then "Ha! ha! ha!" a chorus came
Of laughter sweet and low,
From millions of flowers under the ground,
Yes, millions beginning to grow...
-From Flower Chorus
..."Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew;
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you."
-from The Rhodora
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"Now folds the the lily all her sweetness up
And slips into the bosom of the lake.
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me."
"Flower in the crannied wall
I pluck you out of the crannies
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand
Little flower__ but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all
I should know what God and man is."
-Flower in the Crannied Wall
"We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North;
Down which a well-worn pathway courted us
To one green wicker in a privet hedge;
This yielding, gave into a grassy walk
Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned;
And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume,blew
Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool..."
from The Gardener's Daughter
"The air is damp and hushed and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death -
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose."
D.H.Lawrence
"Nature responds so beautifully.
Roses are only once-wild roses, that were given an extra chance,
So they bloomed out and filled themselves with coloured fullness
Out of sheer desire to be splendid, and more splendid."
-Roses
"And still I look for the men who will dare to be
roses of England
wild roses of England
men who are wild roses of England
with metal thorns beware!
but still more brave and still more rare
the courage of rosiness in a cabbage world
fragrance of roses in a stale stink of lies
rose-leaves to bewilder the clever fools
and rose-briars to strangle the machine."
-Rose and Cabbage
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