Celia Thaxter Quotes

35 Sourced Quotes

When in these fresh mornings I go into my garden before anyone is awake, I go for the time being into perfect happiness. In this hour divinely fresh and still, the fair face of every flower salutes me with a silent joy.... All the cares, perplexities, and griefs of existence, all the burdens of life slip from my shoulders and leave me with the heart of a little child that asks nothing beyond the present moment of innocent bliss.

Celia Thaxter
The barren island dreams in flowers, while blow
The south winds, drawing haze o'er sea and land;
Yet the great heart of ocean, throbbing slow,
Makes the frail blossoms vibrate where they stand; And hints of heavier pulses soon to shake
Its mighty breast when summer is no more,
And devastating waves sweep on and break,
And clasp with girdle white the iron shore.

Celia Thaxter
I am fully and intensely aware that plants are conscious of love and respond to it as they do to nothing else.

Celia Thaxter
Ever since I could remember anything, flowers have been like dear friends to me, comforters, inspirers, powers to uplift and to cheer.

Celia Thaxter
Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made. And he is born to happiness in this vale of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that earth can giver her children, joy that is tranquil, innocent, uplifting, unfailing.

Celia Thaxter
So deeply is the gardener's instinct implanted in my soul, I really love the tools with which I work; the iron fork, the spade, the hoe, the rake, the trowel, and the watering pot are pleasant objects in my eyes.

Celia Thaxter
O brief, bright smile of summer!
O days divine and dear
The voices of winter's sorrow
Already we can hear. And we know that the frosts will find us,
And the smiling skies grow rude,
While we look in the face of Beauty,
And worship her every mood.

Celia Thaxter
If death were the exception and not the rule, and we were not so swiftly to follow, these separations would be intolerably sad. We know no more of our next change of life than we knew of this before we were born into it; but that which we call death is merely change, who can doubt?

Celia Thaxter
With the first faint green lines that are visible along the flower beds come the weeds, yea, and even before them; a wild, vigorous, straggling army, full of health, of strength, and a most marvelous power of growth. These must be dealt with at once and without mercy; they must be pulled up root and branch, without a moment's delay.

Celia Thaxter
To stand by the beds at sunrise and see the flowers awake is a heavenly delight.

Celia Thaxter
The turf is warm beneath her feet, Bordering the beach of stone and shell, And thick about her path the sweet Red blossoms of the pimpernel.

Celia Thaxter
The eternal sound of the sea on every side has a tendency to wear away the edge of human thought and perception...

Celia Thaxter
O happy, happy morning! O dear, familiar place! / O warm, sweet tears of Heaven, fast falling on my face! / O well-remembered, rainy wind, blow all my care away, / That I may be a child again this blissful morn of May.

Celia Thaxter
The toad has indeed no superior as a destroyer of noxious insects, and he possesses no bad habits and is entirely inoffensive himself, every owner of a garden should treat him with utmost hospitality.

Celia Thaxter
Oh, I never meant, in my old age, to become subject to the thrall of a love like this; it is almost dreadful, so absorbing, so stirring down to the deeps. For the tiny creature is so old and wise and sweet, and so fascinating in his sturdy common sense and clear intelligence; and his affection for me is a wonderful, exquisite thing, the sweetest flower that has bloomed for me in all my life through.

Celia Thaxter
It is curious that the leaf should so love the light and the root so hate it.

Celia Thaxter
The Genie in the Arabian tale is not half so astonishing [as a seed]. In this tiny casket lie folded roots, stalks, leaves, buds, flowers, seed-vessels, - surpassing color and beautiful form, all that goes to make up a plant which is as gigantic in proportion to the bounds that confine it as the Oak is to the acorn.

Celia Thaxter
When the snow is still blowing against the window-pane in January and February and the wild winds are howling without, what pleasure it is to plan for summer that is to be.

Celia Thaxter
Look to the East, where up the lucid sky; the morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair.

Celia Thaxter
Soon will set in the fitful weather, with fierce gales and sullen skies and frosty air, and it will be time to tuck up safely my roses and lillies and the rest for their winter sleep beneath the snow, where I never forget them, but ever dream of their wakening in happy summers yet to be.

Celia Thaxter
The summer day was spoiled with fitful storm;
At night the wind died and the soft rain dropped;
With lulling murmur, and the air was warm,
And all the tumult and the trouble stopped.

Celia Thaxter
There shall be
Eternal summer in the grateful heart.

Celia Thaxter
Peacefully
The quiet stars came out, one after one;
The holy twilight fell upon the sea,
The summer day was done.

Celia Thaxter
As the days go on toward July, the earth becomes dry and all the flowers begin to thirst for moisture. Then from the hillside, some warm, still evening, the sweet rain-song of the robin echoes clear, and next day we wake up to a dim morning; soft flecks of cloud bar the sun's way, fleecy vapors steal across the sky, the southwest wind blows lightly, rippling the water into little waves that murmur melodiously as they kiss the shore.

Celia Thaxter
He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul.

Celia Thaxter
As I hold the flower in my hand and think of trying to describe it, I realize how poor a creature I am, how impotent are words in the presence of such perfection.

Celia Thaxter
Last week, when I went early into my garden, a rose-breasted grosbeak was sitting on the fence. Oh, he was beautiful as a flower. I hardly dared to breathe, I did not stir, and we gazed at each other fully five minutes before he concluded to move.

Celia Thaxter
Already the dandelions
Are changed into vanishing ghosts.

Celia Thaxter
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sand-piper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit.
The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.

Celia Thaxter
No sadder sound salutes you than the clear,
Wild laughter of the loon.

Celia Thaxter