As the brain of man is the speck of dust in the universe that thinks, so the leaves--the fern and the needled pine and the lattice...d frond and the seaweed ribbon--perceive the light in a fundamental and constructive sense. The flowers looking in from the walled garden through my window do not, it is true, see me. But their leaves see the light, as my eyes can never do. They take it, as it forever spills away radiant into space in a golden waste, to a primal purpose. They impound its stellar energy, and with that force they make life out of the elements. They breathe upon the dust, and it is a rose. Say that this is done with neither thought nor passion, and by something other than will. True that a plant may not think; neither will the profoundest of men ever put forth a flower. Of the use and the beauty of flowering there can be no shade of doubt. It is a rare thought of which as much can be said.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sucking milk from this our body sends through jolts of light; the son, the father,... sharing mother's joy That brings a softness to the flower of the awesome open curling lotus gate I cup and kissLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow,... Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ah, Sun-flower, weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun,... Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller's journey is done: Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A girl could only see That a flower had marred a man,... But what she could not see Was that the flower might be Other than base and fetid:LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The appeal to heaven breaks off. The petals begin to fall, in self-forgiveness.... It is a flower. On this mountainside it is dying.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »