Pansies
* * * upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
The pansy this,
O, that's for lover's thoughts.
Pansies (Viola Tricolor) are a large group of hybrid plants cultivated as garden flowers. Pansies are derived from Viola species Viola tricolor hybridized with other viola species, these hybrids are referred to as Viola × wittrockiana or less commonly Viola tricolor hortensis. The name "pansy" also appears as part of the common name for other Viola species that are wildflowers in Europe. Some unrelated species, such as the Pansy Monkeyflower, also have "pansy" in their name.
Quotes
[edit]- The pansy freaked with jet. That is true
- John Milton, Lycidas (1637), line 144.
- Pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (c. 1600-1602), Act IV, scene 5, line 176.
- The bolt of Cupid fell:
* * * upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-1596), Act II, scene 1, line 165.
- Darker than darkest pansies.
- Alfred Tennyson, The Gardener's Daughter (1842).
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
[edit]- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 577-78.
- Pansies for ladies all–(I wis
That none who wear such brooches miss
A jewel in the mirror).- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Flower in a Letter.
- Pansies? You praise the ones that grow today
Here in the garden; had you seen the place
When Sutherland was living!
Here they grew,
From blue to deeper blue, in midst of each
A golden dazzle like a glimmering star,
Each broader, bigger than a silver crown;
While here the weaver sat, his labor done,
Watching his azure pets and rearing them,
Until they seem'd to know his step and touch,
And stir beneath his smile like living things:
The very sunshine loved them, and would lie
Here happy, coming early, lingering late,
Because they were so fair.- Robert Buchanan, Hugh Sutherland's Pansies.
- I pray, what flowers are these?
The pansy this,
O, that's for lover's thoughts.- George Chapman, All Fools, Act II, scene 1, line 248.
- I send thee pansies while the year is young,
Yellow as sunshine, purple as the night;
Flowers of remembrance, ever fondly sung
By all the chiefest of the Sons of Light;
And if in recollection lives regret
For wasted days and dreams that were not true,
I tell thee that the "pansy freak'd with jet"
Is still the heart's ease that the poets knew
Take all the sweetness of a gift unsought,
And for the pansies send me back a thought.- Sarah Dowdney, Pansies.
- The delicate thought, that cannot find expression,
For ruder speech too fair,
That, like thy petals, trembles in possession,
And scatters on the air.- Bret Harte, The Mountain Heart's Ease.
- Heart's ease! one could look for half a day
Upon this flower, and shape in fancy out
Full twenty different tales of love and sorrow,
That gave this gentle name.- Mary Howitt, Heart's Ease.
- They are all in the lily-bed, cuddled close together-
Purple, Yellow-cap, and little Baby-blue;
How they ever got there you must ask the April weather,
The morning and the evening winds, the sunshine and the dew.- Nellie M. Hutchinson, Vagrant Pansies.
- The beauteous pansies rise
In purple, gold, and blue,
With tints of rainbow hue
Mocking the sunset skies.- Thomas J. Ouseley, The Angel of the Flowers.
- Heart's ease or pansy, pleasure or thought,
Which would the picture give us of these?
Surely the heart that conceived it sought
Heart's ease.- Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Flower Piece by Fanten.
- Pansies in soft April rains
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap
Drawn from Earth's prolific lap.- Bayard Taylor, Home and Travel. Ariel in the Cloven Pine, line 37.
