Letitia Elizabeth Landon on Flowers

“It is the Hyacinth, whose sweet bells stooping, Bend with the odours heavy in their cells; Amid the shadows of their fragrant drooping, Memory, that is itself a shadow, dwells.”

“Not to the sunny hours That waken other flowers, Dost thou fling forth the odour of thy sighing But in the time of gloom, Is yielded thy perfume, Like Love, that lives when all beside is dying.”

“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!”

“Thou beautiful new comer, With white and maiden brow ; Thou fairy gift from summer, Why art thou blooming now ? This dim and sheltered alley Is dark with winter green ; Not such as in the valley At sweet spring-time is seen.”

“Though many a flower may win my praise, The violet has my love; I did not pass my childish days In garden or in grove: My garden was the window-seat, Upon whose edge was set A little vase—the fair, the sweet— It was the violet.”

“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.”