Yet here's eglantine,
Here's ivy!--take them as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where read more

Yet here's eglantine,
Here's ivy!--take them as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine.

Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue?
And where is the violet's beautiful blue?
Does aught read more

Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue?
And where is the violet's beautiful blue?
Does aught of its sweetness the blossom beguile?
That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile?

Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.

Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.

By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.

By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.

Flowers grow out of dark moments.

Flowers grow out of dark moments.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead.
She wept tear after tear, with the blood which was shed,--
read more

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead.
She wept tear after tear, with the blood which was shed,--
And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close;
Her tears, to the wind-flower,--his blood, to the rose.

Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime rot and consume themselves in little time.

Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime rot and consume themselves in little time.

I know not which I love the most,
Nor which the comeliest shows,
The timid, bashful violet
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I know not which I love the most,
Nor which the comeliest shows,
The timid, bashful violet
Or the royal-hearted rose:
The pansy in purple dress,
The pink with cheek of red,
Or the faint, fair heliotrope, who hangs,
Like a bashful maid her head.