“Of late the nights
are dawning
plum-blossom white.”
Yosa Buson (1716–1783) poet from Japan
Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6
“The white May blossom swooned slowly into the open mouth of the grave.”
The opening line of a juvenile and "dreadful imitation" of Joyce's Dubliners - John Banville http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/10/johnbanville?INTCMP=SRCH, The Guardian (22 July 2008).
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John Banville97
Irish writer 1945Related quotes
“Youth is a blossom whose fruit is love; happy is he who plucks it after watching it slowly ripen.”
Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo
“Slowly, slowly winter day opens his arctic eye.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author
Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book One, Part II: Free of Debt
“Tantarrara! the joyous Book of Spring
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William Allingham (1824–1889) Irish man of letters and poet
Daffodil; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Lucy Larcom (1824–1893) American teacher, poet, author
Introductory poem.
Poems (1869)
Context: These blossoms, gathered in familiar paths,
With dear companions now passed out of sight,
Shall not be laid upon their graves. They live,
Since love is deathless. Pleasure now nor pride
Is theirs in mortal wise, but hallowing thoughts
Will meet the offering, of so little worth,
Wanting the benison death has made divine.
“Describe plum-blossoms?
Better than my verses… white
Wordless Butterflies”
Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet
Source: Japanese Haiku
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist
Original quote:
For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
The Extraordinary Cabman, one of many essays collected in Tremendous Trifles (1909)
Misattributed
“White as the blossoms which the almond tree,
Above its bald and leafless branches bears.”
Margaret Junkin Preston (1820–1897) American writer
The Royal Preacher, Stanza 5, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 19.
“Let the black flower blossom as it may!”
Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter
Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XIV: Hester and the Physician