The Rose: Its History, Poetry, Culture, and Classification

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Wiley & Putnam, 1847 - Flowers in literature - 280 pages

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Page 104 - O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses; But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest...
Page 140 - WHO has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave, Its temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave...
Page 95 - Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone ; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone ; No flower of her kindred, No rose-bud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes, Or give sigh for sigh. I'll not leave thee, thou lone one ! To pine on the stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them. Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead. So soon may...
Page 121 - Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower With...
Page 8 - I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
Page 72 - ... angels look Behind the blissful screen ; As when, triumphant o'er His woes, The Son of God by moonlight rose, By all but Heaven unseen. As when the holy maid beheld Her risen Son and Lord : Thought has not colours half so fair, That she to paint that hour may dare — In silence best ador'd.
Page 32 - Brescia, who lived at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, and died 1510, at Bergamo, at a very advanced age.
Page 97 - Where the flower of my forefathers grew. Sweet bud of the wilderness ! emblem of all That remains in this desolate heart ! The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall ; But patience shall never depart ! Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion by fancy combined, With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind.
Page 86 - Oft has the poet's magic tongue The rose's fair luxuriance sung ; And long the Muses, heavenly maids, Have rear'd it in their tuneful shades. When, at the early glance of morn, It sleeps upon the glittering thorn, 'Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence, To cull the timid floweret thence, And wipe with tender hand away The tear that on its blushes lay!
Page 71 - Tis Love, the last, best gift of Heaven, Love, gentle, holy, pure ; But tenderer than a dove's soft eye, The searching sun, the open sky, She never could endure.

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