“There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as words —
none so graceful, none so perfumed.” Thomas Wentworth Higginson
“Flowers are love’s truest language.” – Park Benjamin Sr.
Flowers
“It takes a long time to become young.” — Pablo Picasso
Bright flowers, whose home is everywhere
Bold in maternal nature’s care
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy and sorrow,
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through.
William Wordsworth
“The silence of a flower: a kind of silence which we continually evade,
of which we find only the shadow in dreams.” — Lewis Thompson
“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots
may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect
on the feelings, as now in October.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful;
they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” — Luther Burbank
“And, like a ripe moon out of flimsy clouds,
Blossoms the shining fulness of your breast.
These curves conceal, this dear perfection shrouds
A soft, miraculous nest….”
Louis Untermeyer, “Ivory and Rose”
“Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile.” — William Cullen Bryant
Autumn Crocus
Native Range: Turkey, Syria, Lebanon
“Besides its ornamental value, the Autumn Crocus has a long history of use in medicine, rooted in the myths and written records of ancient Egypt, India, and Greece. It is mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, the oldest known medical text, prepared by the Egyptians around 1550 B.C. Thirty-five centuries later it is still found in modern pharmacopeias, one of only 18 plants documented as having a history of medicinal value for such a long period of time.”
What makes a nation’s pillars high
And its foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?
It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.
Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.
And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.
Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor’s sake
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly…
They build a nation’s pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904)
Maverick Mist 