Flowers & Poetry

Flowers and literature have gone hand in hand for thousands of years;  flowers have turned up as symbols in everything from Shakespeare's Hamlet to Pablo Neruda's poetry. Here are a few of our favorites:



Pansies

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OPHELIA : There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES : A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA : There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,--

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4 Scene V

Marigolds

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Open afresh your round of starry folds
Ye ardent marigolds!
Dry up the moisture of your golden lids
For great Apollo bids.
That in these days your praises should be sung
On many harps which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him I have you in my world of blisses!
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.

-John Keats

Daffodils

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I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

 

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-William Wordsworth