“A flower, when offered in the bud,
Is no vain sacrifice.”
Song 12: "The Advantages of early Religion".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)
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Isaac Watts 47
English hymnwriter, theologian and logician 1674–1748Related quotes
“Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.”
The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers.
Song
The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), The Flower of Old Japan
“Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are.”
Source: Mrs. Dalloway
No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness".
Olney Hymns (1779)
Étude Réaliste.
Undated
30 December 1850
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Context: Each bud flowers but once and each flower has but its minute of perfect beauty; so, in the garden of the soul each feeling has, as it were, its flowering instant, its one and only moment of expansive grace and radiant kingship. Each star passes but once in the night through the meridian over our heads and shines there but an instant; so, in the heaven of the mind each thought touches its zenith but once, and in that moment all its brilliancy and all its greatness culminate. Artist, poet, or thinker, if you want to fix and immortalize your ideas or your feelings, seize them at this precise and fleeting moment, for it is their highest point. Before it, you have but vague outlines or dim presentiments of them. After it you will have only weakened reminiscence or powerless regret; that moment is the moment of your ideal.
"When First the Poets Sung", line 47.
These lines were repeatedly drawn on by Sitwell in his later works.
