Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Flower Quotes

48 Sourced Quotes

View all Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes
There is a flower, a purple flower
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower,
O'er which Love has breathed a power and spell
The truth of whispering hope to tell.
(According to the Lady's Book of Flowers, 1842, this is the centaury)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And scarce a beech Was there with a honeysuckle link'd Around, with its red tendrils and pink flowers...

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Violets! — deep-blue violets!
April's loveliest coronets!
There are no flowers grow in the vale,
Kiss'd by the dew, wooed by the gale, —
None by the dew of the twilight wet,
So sweet as the deep-blue violet!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There are a thousand fanciful things
Linked round the young heart's imaginings.
In its first love-dream, a leaf or a flower
Is gifted then with a spell and a power:
A shade is an omen, a dream is a sign,
From which the maiden can well divine
Passion's whole history.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The peasant boy, who followed the coloured track of the rainbow, hoping to find the blue and charmed flower which springs where the arch touches earth, is wiser far than one who gives youth, genius, and time to literature.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh never another dream can be
Like that early dream of ours,
When the fairy Hope lay down to sleep,
Like a child, among the flowers.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Sweet Hope ! every pleasant flower
Suns itself in thy glad power ;
Every sorrow comes to thee,
Desart fount for Misery !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I know a lovely little flower, a flower for which I pine —
I would go gather it, but bars my heavy hours confine;
Oh, grief, when free, how easily that little flower was mine !
...
Oh, were I sinking to the grave I often ask in vain,
And welcome Death stood by to loose the wasted captive's chain —
Ah, name me the Forget-me-not, I'd wake to life again!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
When will my soul forget the look
With which one single stem she took
From out the wreath ?—a tulip flower;
But, touch'd as by some withering power,
The painted leaves were drooping round
The rich but burning heart they bound.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
For many years he has not breathed the air,
The wholesome open air ; the sun, the moon,
The stars, the clouds, the fair blue heaven, the spring,
The flowers, the trees, and the sweet face of man,
Song, or words yet more musical than song,
Affections, feelings, social intercourse
(Unless remembered in his fairy dreams)
Have all been strangers to his solitude ! —
A curse is set on him, like poverty,
Or leprosy, or the red plague, but worse, —
The heart has sent its fire up to the brain,
And he is mad.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ahmed comes back a conqueror, but what hath he found?
The cry of the orphan is loud on his ear,
And his eye hath beheld the young bride's bitter tear,
And the friend of his youth is left dead on the plain,
And the flower of his nobles return not again.
There are crowds that are filling the air with his name;
Do ye marvel the monarch is loathing his fame?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Pillowed on a lotus flower,
Gathered in a summer hour,
Rides he o'er the mountain wave
Which would be a tall ship's grave!
At his back his bow is slung,
Sugar-cane, with wild bees strung,—

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The bright cloud shone on the river's face,
But the death-black waters had not a trace
Of the crimson blaze that over them play'd :
It seem'd as if a curse were laid
On the grass, on the river, the tree, and the flower,
And shut them out from the sunbeam's power ;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Up climb'd the sweet pea,
The butterfly of flowers:—I love it not,
Though every hue—and it has many tints—
Are dyed as if the sunset evening clouds
Had fallen to the earth in sudden rain,
And left their colours : purple, delicate pink,
And snowy white, are on thy wing-like leaves;
But thou art all too forward in thy bloom ;
Thy blossoms are the sun's, and cling to all
That can support them into open day:
And then they die, leaving no root behind,
The hope and promise of another spring;
And no perfume, whose lingering gratitude
Remains round what upheld its summer's life.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The very sound of his own steps disturbed him ; and he flung himself on a couch, to enjoy without interruption the exquisite melody. The intense perfume of the flowers intoxicated him like wine. He felt as if lulled in a delicious trance, in which one image became more and more distinct — the pale but lovely face of his hostess. His heart was filling with love for those radiant eyes. A softer fragrance breathed around him — it was her breath. He looked, and she was again bending over him ; he saw himself mirrored in the moonlight of her eyes.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
O Earth ! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never
Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers;
And hast thou then no pity for mankind ?
Can thy maternal breast receive again
Their dust, and yet not throb ?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
We met in secret : mystery is to love
Like perfume to the flower ; the maiden's blush
Looks loveliest when her cheek is pale with fear.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
He took his lute—his voice was low,
So lapsing waters softly flow
Amid the drooping flowers around,
As if they turned their sighs to sound.
Ah, magic! of a voice that seems
To haunt the soul with hopes and dreams;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
This mountain-ash, whose flower-fill'd boughs
Spread like a cloud at noon —
Whose shade is as a haunted place
For the sweet airs of June :
'Twas but a little shrub when first
I wreathed amid thy hair
Its berries, like the coral crown
That the sea-maidens wear.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Awakening hope has named the name
Of love, or blown its spark to flame.
Restlessness, but as the winds range
From leaf to leaf, from flower to flower;
Changefulness, but as rainbows change,
From colour'd sky to sunlit hour.
Ay, well indeed may minstrel sing,—
What have the heart and year like spring?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I Give thee, love, a blooming braid;
I cull'd it at eve's 'witching hour ;
I twin'd it in the moon's sweet shade,
When starlight dew was on each flower.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ah! love and song are but a dream,
A flower's faint shade on life's dark stream.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a flower, a magical flower,
On which love hath laid a fairy power ;
Gather it on the eve of St. John,
When the clock of the village is tolling one ;
Let no look be turned, no word be said,
And lay the rose-leaves under your head ;
Your sleep will be light, and pleasant your rest,
For your visions will be of the youth you love best.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I'm weary, I'm weary,—this cold world of ours;
I will go dwell afar, with fairies and flowers.
....
I'm weary, I'm weary,—I'm off with the wind:
Can I find a worse fate than the one left behind?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
[From Ianthe]
I am a miser
Of all thy thoughts and words, and looks and feelings—
Oh, I am jealous of a leaf, a flower,
A song, a star, if much thought on by thee !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Wouldst thou know what life should be?
Were it mine but to decree
What its path should be for Thee ?
Look upon those sister powers,
Chained, but only chained with flowers, —
That bright group of rose-winged Hours

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
'Tis May again, another May,
Looking as if it meant to stay ;
So many are its thousand flowers,
So glorious are its sunny hours,
So green its earth, so blue its sky,
As made for Hope's eternity.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Do any thing but love ; or if thou lovest
And art a Woman, hide thy love from him
Who thou dost worship ; never let him know
How dear he is ; flit like a bird before him, —
Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower ;
But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird,
When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected,
And perish in forgetfulness.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But not like this is Nature's face,
Though even she must bear the trace
Of the great curse that clings to all ;
Her leaves, her flowers, must spring to fall :

Letitia Elizabeth Landon