“I know a lovely little flower, a flower for which I pine —
I would go gather it, but bars my heavy hours confine;
Oh, grief, when free, how easily that little flower was mine!
...
Oh, were I sinking to the grave I often ask in vain,
And welcome Death stood by to loose the wasted captive's chain —
Ah, name me the Forget-me-not, I'd wake to life again!”

— Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette (3rd January 1835) Versions from the German (First Series.) - 'The Lovely Little Flower' — Goethe.
Translations, From the German

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I know a lovely little flower, a flower for which I pine — I would go gather it, but bars my heavy hours confine; Oh,…" by Letitia Elizabeth Landon?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

Letitia Elizabeth Landon 785

English poet and novelist 1802–1838

Related quotes

“Oh, I would while away the hours,
Wanking in the flowers, my heart all full of song,
I'd be gliding all the lilies as I waved about my willie,
If I only had a schlong.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

“T is but a little faded flower,
But oh, how fondly dear!
'T will bring me back one golden hour,
Through many a weary year.”

Ellen Clementine Howarth (1827–1899) American writer

'Tis but a Little, Faded Flower, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I 've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
But 't was the first to fade away.
I never nurs'd a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
And love me, it was sure to die.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Lalla Rookh http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/lallarookh/index.html (1817), Part V-VIII: The Fire-Worshippers

“I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.”

Charlotte Brontë book Villette

Source: Villette (1853), Ch. XXIX: Monsieur's Fête

“Amidst the early morning dew
Walking across the greenery
And in the evening that is scary
While taking a breath,
Oh, flower, I listen to your song,
Oh flower, I defeat your love.”

Kuvempu (1904–1994) Kannada novelist, poet, playwright, critic, and thinker

"The Flower", a translation of his first Kannada poem "Poovu".

/ Poet, nature lover and humanist (2004)

“Flowers fade and fly, and flying fill the sky;
Their bloom departs, their perfume gone, yet who stands pitying by? …
Oh, let me sadly bury them beside these steps to-night! …
Farewell, dear flowers, for ever now, thus buried as 'twas best,
I have not yet divined when I with you shall sink to rest.
I who can bury flowers like this a laughing-stock shall be;
I cannot say in days to come what hands shall bury me.
See how when spring begins to fail each opening floweret fades;
So too there is a time of age and death for beauteous maids;
And when the fleeting spring is gone, and days of beauty o'er,
Flowers fall, and lovely maidens die, and both are known no more.”

Herbert Giles book A History of Chinese Literature

"The Hung Lou Mêng", p. 368
A History of Chinese Literature (1901)

“In rose with petals soft as air
I bind for you the tides and fire —
the death that lives within the flower,
oh, gladly love, for you I bear.”

Kathleen Raine (1908–2003) poet, critic, translator

Poem Envoi

“When I gathered flowers
For my girl
From the top of the plum tree
The lower branches
Drenched me with dew.”

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (662–710) Japanese poet

XXII, p. 24
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese (1976)

“Oh, call my brother back to me!
I cannot play alone:
The summer comes with flower and bee,—
Where is my brother gone?”

Felicia Hemans The Child's First Grief

The Child's First Grief (1828).

“I thought that prattling boys and girls
Would fill this empty room;
That my rich heart would gather flowers
From childhood's opening bloom.

One child and two green graves are mine,
This is God's gift to me;
A bleeding, fainting, broken heart—
This is my gift to Thee.”

Elizabeth Prentiss (1818–1878) American musician, hymnwriter

On the death of her child (1852), reported in The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss (1882), p. 138.

Related topics