Blossom

“ Whether manifesting itself in the inconspicuous flower upon the tree or in the equally unassuming inflorescence of the vegetable, or unfurling petals of satin or gauze of brilliant hue and marvelous beauty, the blossom is the origin of most that is useful or beautiful in the organic world about us. Strip the world of its blossoms, and the higher forms of life must come to a speedy termination. ”

“ The whole pleasurableness of warm air, clear moist sky, the surprise of the shimmer of pale green, of the yellowing blossom on tree tops, the first flicker of faint shadow where all has been uniform, colourless, shadeless ”

“ The joyful festivals of the cherry blossom, the wistaria, the iris and chrysanthemum, the sombre colours of the beech blossom and the paths about the lotus gardens, where mankind meditated in solemn mood. ”

“ At the feet of the trees are the flowers of the seasons in their order. Here and there the precious dark earth is visible, adding a charm to the pale green stems and leaves and the splendid or thoughtful hues of blossom. ”

“ The slow hard tears,
Could break new ground, and wake
A new strange garden to blossom for your sake,
And leave me here alone,
In the old garden that was once our own?
How should I learn to bear
Our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air,
Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn,
When only in a picture these appear—
These, once alive, and always over-dear?
Ah—think again: the rose you used to wear
Must still be more than other roses be
The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me! ”

“ When all the flowers go to sleep
When leaf and blossom fall,
When shrub and tree all mourning stand
And birds no longer call,
From ice and snow then blooms to light
My little flower so silver white. ”

“ Nay, there's a charm beyond what nature shows, The bloom is softer and more sweetly glows; Pierced by no crime and urged by no desire For more than true and honest hearts require, They feel the calm delight, and thus proceed Through the green lane,—then linger in the mead,— Stray o'er the heath in all its purple bloom,— And pluck the blossom where the wild bees hum ”

“ Certain flowers are now in bloom, but you never find a mourning cloak or a hunter, a question mark or a painted lady fluttering about them. The bees are in the willow blooms and the alder catkins after pollen. The maples are in bloom. You can find hepaticas and violets, chickweed, crocus, snowdrop, and, I dare say, dandelions in blossom, and almost every day some new shrub{147} or shy herb sends perfumed invitation out on the messenger winds. ”

“ Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night's decay
Ushers in a drearier day. ”

“ In some parts it is a general favourite, and may be seen in almost every garden; such patronage is well merited, as it not only enlivens the garden at a dead season, but it heralds spring time and furnishes long sprigs of wallflower-scented blossom as cut bloom, which shows to advantage by gaslight. ”

“ Droop all the flowers in my garden,
⁠All their fair heads hang low;
For rose, their fairest companion,
⁠Never again will they know.
Bring me no flowers for wearing,
⁠Take these strange buds away,
For I cannot now have the fairest—
⁠My rose that has died to-day.
What has blighted my blossom?
⁠Stricken it down with death. ”

“ Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky. ”

“ For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows, and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins. ”

“ We naturally wonder what the plants are, but it may be many years before our curiosity is satisfied. Suddenly some spring we find them sending up tall blossom-shafts, crowned with great airy plumes of pure-white flowers, fully worthy of our long and patient waiting. ”

“ Or the clouds driven by the breeze
Floating everywhere.
[223]
LIGHT AND SHADOW.
Shine down, fair sun, on vale and hill,
And light each height and hollow;—
No shade rests in the air, but still
On earth the shadows follow.
Grow green, old trees, where'er you may
Your festival be keeping;—
On branch and stem, on leaf and spray,
Decay is slowly creeping.
Bloom bright, fair flowers, in wild or mead,
Around you all perfuming;—
The blight that mingles with each seed,
The blossom is consuming. ”

“ The extreme beauty of this tree when in blossom arises partly from the delightful mixture of the leaves and blossoms together,—almost all the other trees that can properly be called flowering ones putting forth their blossoms before they have acquired sufficient green leaves to contrast with and set them off. ”

“ The process is an unnatural one, and the result is a forced blossom, that, however brilliantly beautiful, has a frail exotic air that makes even admirers wonder if the plant has sufficient strength ever to bloom again. ”

“ If I were yonder orange-tree,
And thou the blossom blooming there,
I would not yield a breath of thee
To scent the most imploring air. ”

“ Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night. ”

“ The great white pear-tree dropped with dew from leaves
And blossom, under heavens of happy blue. ”

“ The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. ”

“ Its fragrant blossom over graves,
And to the humble rosemary
Whose sweets so thanklessly are shed
To scent the desert [305] and the dead:—
All in that garden bloom and all
Are gathered by young NOURMAHAL,
Who heaps her baskets with the flowers
And leaves till they can hold no more; ”

“ When you came up profusely, one can hardly believe
That blossoms like these, such wee little mites
Could produce in my garden such wonderful sights.
When once you are planted when Spring comes around,
Multiplied by hundreds you’d peep through the ground;
Awaiting the heat, the Sun and the rain
In the sweet early summer to grow lovely again.
You come every year, you make my heart glad
With such beautiful blossoms, how can I be sad?
The humming bird loves you, they come every day
And drink of your nectar, so softly and gay.{8} ”

“ Too many flower photographers fail to get really CLOSE UP PICTURES. A single blossom or a small cluster of blossoms provides a much more attractive and significant picture than an entire plant. One blossom with, perhaps, a bud, one fruit, and a trace of foliage, if well composed, is tops among flower pictures. ”

“ The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,
Year after year, about the forest tossed,
The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost,
Back from the Heaven of the Flow’rs doth bring;
Each branch and bush in silence visiting
With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost:
Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost,
Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming.
This is the wonder-legend Nature tells
To the gray moon and mist a winter’s night ”

“ Stir marvelous dreams of blossoms red.
Then the sap creeps swift; the bare boughs
⁠bloom;
The violets under the boughs make room.
And because the heron is on the wing,
The earth blooms into the waking spring! ”

“ Here the beauty and conspicuousness of the blossom, which are very great, are, as far as can be seen, useless; the plant gains nothing by the attractiveness which it offers, and the colouring and ornamentation of the blossom are, on the theory of utility, residual phenomena. ”

“ It is entirely too cold for thee.”
“Beautiful flower,” sang the sunbeams, “how lovely thou art in thy white purity. Thou art the herald of Spring,—our first flower. Thy fair white bell shall ring the glad tidings of Spring over towns and fields. The snow shall melt, the bitter wind shall be driven away. Now earth shall send forth all her lovely blossoms and thou shalt have beautiful fellowship. ”

“ The young foliage, of a clear brilliant green, is gayly decked with the long clusters of peculiarly fresh pink blossoms, which seem like the very incarnation of the spirit of Spring, producing a certain eblouissement, which quickens our sense into an anticipation of beauty on every side. ”

“ Near at hand, dotted all over the field, bloomed the wild snowdrops in utmost profusion, with a looser habit of growth, a longer stalk, and a wider [Pg 125] flower than the garden variety. Lovely pure-white blossoms, with their tiny green markings, they stood like fairy bells among the grass, so dainty and perfect, it seemed almost a sacrilege to disturb them. ”

“ And still new buds awakened spring,
For sunshine makes the garden wise,
To know the time for blossoming.
Night is no time for blossoming,
Your garden then dreams otherwise,
Of vanished Summer, vanished Spring,
And how the dearest flower first dies. ”

“ Now the queen who, as you know, loved her flowers more than any other one thing in the world, never failed each morning to look at her bouquet and examine with loving care 363each blossom in it. And it was with no small surprise that she discovered the strange flowers placed that morning upon her table.
"These blossoms are rare, indeed," said she. "Is it possible that my garden contains so many plants that are strangers to me? I have seen blossoms more beautiful than some of these, but never before have I enjoyed a perfume so delicious. ”

“ For look you, who cares for flowers where flowers always are? In my country, after the iron winter breaks and the sun drives away the long night, the first blossoms twinkling on the melting ice-edge are things of joy, and we look, and look again. ”

“ Such are the blossoms to be seen before most doors; and each is pretty in its own time and place; one has a long-standing regard for them all, including the homely sun-flower, which we should be sorry to miss from its old haunts. ”

“ One might almost call this the Land of Lilies, were it not that other families of flowers, violets, eglantine, roses, white and red, lilacs and rhododendrons are equally prolific, while in the orchards, peach and pear blossoms fill the land with glory and beauty. In the endless procession of the seasons there are lovely blossoms from snowfall to snowfall again. ”

“ No: in this garden the roses grow as they might have grown in Eden—untrained, unpruned, in enormous bushes covered entirely by magnificent blossoms, each bloom of which would have won a prize at a rose-show. ”

“ Apple-blossoms and the pale wild roses that grow in the shadow of woody lanes were things of which she always reminded you, she was so slight and so fair, with just a suggestion of bloom about her—the bloom of youth. Hardly beautiful, but then seventeen summers have a beauty of their own—a beauty of firm round curves and velvety color, whose absence a dozen years later works utter transformation. ”

“ The moment the trees and flowers begin to sprout and bud in the early days of spring, they emerge from their hills, and get among the stalks and branches, and thence to the blossoms and flowers, where they sit and gaze around them. ”

“ The bright- hued blossoms seemed to make her oblivious for a moment of the darkness and corruption to which she was so soon to consign her priceless treasure. The child's sweet face, even in death, reminded me that the flowers of the field and garden, however lovely, are all outshone by human beauty. What floral glory of the wild-wood, or what queen of the parterre, in all the pride of bloom, laughing in the sun-light or dancing in the breeze, hath a charm that could vie for a single moment with the soft and holy lustre of that motionless and faded human lily? ”

“ Already the early single flowers are fading and falling; every gentle breath of wind sends a fresh shower of the thin transparent petals to the ground. To-morrow the heavy clusters of the double pink blossoms will have lost their freshness, and will be hiding their glories under the brown leaves that seem to unfurl and grow while we look at them. ”

“ It is the floral solstice a little after midsummer, when the particles of golden light, the sun-dust, have, as it were, fallen like seeds on the earth, and produced these blossoms. On every hillside, and in every valley, stood countless asters, coreopses, tansies, golden-rods, and the whole race of yellow flowers, like Brahminical devotees, turning steadily with their luminary from morning till night. ”

“ If the blossom be of most importance we call it a flower, such as daisies, tulips, and carnations, which are the mere blossoms of those plants. If the husks or seeds are eaten they are called the fruits of the ground, as peas, beans, strawberries, etc. ”

“ And the strangest thing was that these flowers, which do not usually bloom at the same time and which open in successive months, were all growing and blossoming together! On one and the same day, these flowers, all perennial flowers whose time does not last much more than two or three weeks, were blooming and multiplying, full and heavy, vivid, sumptuous, proudly borne on their sturdy stems. ”

“ By and by a day came when the little plant was covered with many tiny blossoms. The [255] other flowers rejoiced to see them. “We’ve guessed your secret. What beautiful flower children—blue, like the sky. It makes the sky seem very near.”
“That is my secret,” answered the little plant. “When I told it to the Angel I said, ‘My flowers must be just the colour of the sky.’ And she whispered, ‘Then always look up, for your flowers will be like that which you love most.’ Then she went away.” ”