Photography without a theme
Flowers with a purpose
All inspiration, writing, and poetry in this section is taken from the book The Sentiment of Flowers; Language of Flora by Robert Tyas, published in 1841
Aloe
Bitterness
So sorrow drives us away from the world, detaches our hearts from the earth, and fills them with bitterness
Buttercups
Ingratitude
I wander out and rhyme;
What hour the dewy morning’s infancy
Hangs on each blade of grass and every tree,
And sprents the red thighs of the humble bee,
Who ‘gins betimes unwearied minstrelsy;
Who breakfasts, dines, and most divinely sups
With every flower save golden buttercups, —
On whose proud bosoms he will never go,
But passes by with scarcely “How do ye do,”
Since in their showy, shining, gaudy cells,
Haply the summer’s honey never dwells.
Clare
Cypress
Mourning
A funeral train
Will in a cypress grove be found
Miss Landon
O’re ruined shrines and silent tombs,
The weeping cypress spreads its glooms,
In immortality of woe,
Whilst other shrubs in gladness blow,
And fling upon the passing wind
Their liberal treasures unconfined.
And well its dark and drooping leaf,
May image forth the gloom and grief.
Which, when we parted, gave reply,
With heaving heart and dewy eye;
Then, lady, wear this wreath for me,
Plucked from the faithful cypress tree.
Wiffen
The mournful cypress rises round,
Tapering from the burial ground
Lucan
Peace to the dust that in silence reposes
Beneath the dark shades of cypress and yew;
Let spring deck the spot with her earliest roses,
And heaven wash their leaves with its holiest dew.
Pierpont
Daffodil
Declaration of Love
Then comes the tulip race, where beauty plays
Her idle freaks; from family diffused
To family, as flies the father dust,
The varied colours run; and while they break
On the charmed eye, the exulting florist marks,
With secret pride, the wonders in his hand.
Thomson
Daisy
Innocence
With little here to do or see
Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet daisy! oft I talk to thee,
For thou art worthy.
Thou unassuming common-place
Of nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace,
Which love makes for thee!
Oft in the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes,
Loose types of things through all degrees,
Thoughts of thy raising;
And many a fond and idle name,
I give to thee, for praise or blame,
As in the humour of the game,
While I am gazing.
A nun demure, of lowly port,
Or sprightly maiden, of love’s court,
In thy simplicity the sport
Of all temptations;
A queen in crown of rubies drest;
A starveling in a scanty vest;
All are, as seems to suit thee best,
Thy appellations
A little Cyclops, with one eye,
Starting to threaten and defy,
That thought comes next — and instantly
The freak is over,
The shape will vanish, and behold
A silver shield with boss of gold,
That spreads itself, some fairy bold,
In flight to cover!
I see thee glittering from afar; —
And then thou are a pretty star;
Not quite so fair as many are
In heaven above thee!
Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in the air, thou seem’st to rest;—
May peace come never to his nest,
Who shall reprove thee!
Sweet flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past,
I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet silent creature!
That breath’st with me in sun and air,
Do then, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!
Wordsworth
Dead Leaves
Sadness
The Falling Leaf
Were I a trembling leaf
on yonder stately tree,
After a season, gay and brief,
Condemned to fade and flee;
I should be loth to fall
Beside the common way,
Weltering in mire, and spurn’d by all
Till trodden down to clay.
No! on the wings of air
Might I be left to fly,
I know not and I heed not where;
A waif of earth and sky!
Or flung upon the stream,
Curl’d like a fairy boat;
As though the changes of a dream,
To the world’s end to float.
Nor would I choose to die
All on a bed of grass;
Where thousands of my kindred lie
And idly rot in mass;
Nor would I like to spread
My thin and wither’d face,
In hortius siccus, pale and dead,
A mummy of my race.
Who that hath ever been,
Could bear to be no more?
Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before?
On, with intense desire,
Man’s spirit will move on:
It seems to die, yet, like Heav’n’s fire,
It is not quenched but gone.
James Montgomery
Dandelion
Oracle
The Decision of the Flower
Now I number the leaves for my lot—
He loves me not—he loves me—he loves me not—
He loves me— yes, thou last leaf, yes—
I’ll pluck thee not for that last sweet sweet guess!
He loves me! ” “ Yes “, a dear voice sighed,
And her lover stands by Margaret’s side.
Miss Landon
And with the scarlet poppies around, like a bower,
The maiden found her mystic flower;
“ Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell
If my lover loves me, and loves me well;
So may the fall of the morning dew
Keep the sun from fading that tender blue.
Fern
Sincerity
Fern often affords an agreeable seat to lovers; its ashes are used in the manufacture of glasses for its convivial party; and all the world knows that love and wine make men sincere
Hawthorn
Hope
Now hawthorns blossom, now the daisies spring.
Pope
The hawthorn boughs were used in England as one of the principle decorations of the Maypole in our ancient village amusements
Ivy
Friendship
I love the ivy-mantled tower,
Rock’d by the storms of thousand years
Cunningham
Nothing is able to separate the ivy from the tree around which it has entwined itself… the companion of its destinies
Laurel
Glory
…preferring virtue to the love of the most eloquent of gods, she fled, fearing that the eloquence of his speech should lead her from the paths of virtue. Apollo pursued her; and as he caught her, the nymph invoked the aid of her father, and was changed into laurel.
The bard his glory ne’re receives,
Where summer’s common flowers are seen,
But winter finds it, when she leaves
The laurel only green';
And Time, from that eternal tree,
Shall weave a wreath to honour thee.
Clare
Meadow Sweet
Uselessness
This plant… is deemed a useless herb, because herbalists have not discovered any medical properties in it… also, because animals reject it as food.
A highly ornamental flower, and, surely that ought to be accounted something.
Mushroom
Suspicion
We regard them as a dainty dish, but we ought to use them with great caution.
Parsley
Entertainment
Feasting
Potato
Beneficence
Humble and unassuming, like true charity, it hides its treasures, which alike gratify the rich and sustain the poor
The potato is emphatically the friend of the poor
Strawberry
Perfect Excellence
That is a work of waste and ruin
Do as Charles and I are doing
Strawberry blossoms, one and all,
We must spare them, here are many
Look at it, the flower is small,
Small and low, though fair as any;
Do not touch it! summers two
I am older, Anne, than you.
Pull the Primrose, sister Anne,
Pull as many as you can.
Here are daisies, take your fill;
Pansies, and the cuckoo flower:
Of the lofty daffodil
Make your bed and make your bower;
Fill your lap and fill your bosom;
Only spare the strawberry blossom!
Primroses, the spring may love them
Summer knows but little of them.
Violets, a barren kind,
Withered on the ground must lie;
Daisies leave no fruit behind,
When the pretty flowerets die;
Pluck them, and another year
As many will be growing here.
God has given a kindlier power
To the favored strawberry flower,
When the months of the spring are fled,
Hither let us bend our walk;
Lurking berries, ripe and red,
Then will hang on every stalk,
Each with its leafy bower;
And for that promise spare the flower.
Wordsworth
Sunflower
False Riches
Eagle of flowers! I see thee stand,
And on the sun’s noon-glory gaze;
With eye like his thy lips expand,
And fringe their disk with golden rays.
J. Montgomery
So false riches are the only things which surprise and charm the vulgar; they are equally degrading to him who possesses them and to him who desires their possession