“Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?”
Moral, st. 1
The Day-Dream (1842)
Context: So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair.
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson213
British poet laureate 1809–1892Related quotes
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
When Should Lover’s Breathe Their Vows from The London Literary Gazette (24th November 1821)
The Improvisatrice (1824)
“There is a god within us.
It is when he stirs us that our bosom warms; it is
his impulse that sows the seeds of inspiration.”
Est deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo:
impetus hic sacrae semina mentis habet.
VI, lines 5-6; translation by Sir James George Frazer
Fasti (The Festivals)
“What we call "morals" is simply blind obedience to words of command.”
H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer
Source: The Dance of Life http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300671.txt (1923), Ch. 6
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.”
John Keats The Eve of St. Agnes
Stanza 27
Poems (1820), The Eve of St. Agnes
“Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.”
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer
All That's Past.
“Cornelia. What flowers are these?
Gazetta. The pansy this.
Cor. Oh, that's for lover's thoughts.”
Act II, scene i.
All Fools (1605)
