“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)

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 "Flowers fade and fly, and flying fill the sky; Their bloom departs, their perfume gone, yet who stands pitying by? … …" by Herbert Giles?

Herbert Giles 7

British sinologist and diplomat 1845–1935

Related quotes

“Let others laugh flower-burial to see:
Another year who will be burying me?”

Cao Xueqin book Dream of the Red Chamber

Dream of the Red Chamber (c. 1760)

“I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmédy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: "American Names" (1931)

“Yes. I killed him. And buried her in flowers," I say. "And I sang her to sleep.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“I'd rather be buried at sea than on the shore when I come to die. Will you stand by the plank, mates, so I can shake a friendly hand before I sink?”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

Billy Budd
Billy Budd (1962)

“Fly not yet; 't is just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night
And maids who love the moon.”

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

Fly not yet.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed,
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Memories of President Lincoln, 1
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Please don't die," she whispered. "I don't think I can bury
you. I already buried everyone else."

"How can I die," Alexander said, his voice breaking, "when you
have poured your immortal blood into me?”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

“I thought how sadly beauty of inscape was unknown and buried away from simple people and yet how near at hand it was if they had eyes to see it and it could be called out everywhere again.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

Journal (19 July 1872)
Letters, etc

“There comes a night when all too late
The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand,
The eager thought behind closed portals stand,
And the last wishes to the mute lips press
Buried ere death in silent helplessness.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

The Legend of Jubal (1869)

“Morn shall meet noon
While the flower-stems yet move,
Though the wind dieth soon
And the clouds fade above.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Love is Enough (1872), Song VII: Dawn Talks to Day
Context: Morn shall meet noon
While the flower-stems yet move,
Though the wind dieth soon
And the clouds fade above.
Loved lips are thine
As I tremble and hearken;
Bright thine eyes shine,
Though the leaves thy brow darken.
O Love, kiss me into silence, lest no word avail me,
Stay my head with thy bosom lest breath and life fail me!
O sweet day, O rich day, made long for our love!

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Herbert Giles 7

Related quotes

Related topics