Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Jasmine (Jasminum)
And at my silent window-sill
The jessamine peeps in.
Bryant—The Hunter’s Serenade.
Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves.
Hood—Flowers.
Jas in the Arab language is despair,
And Min the darkest meaning of a lie.
Thus cried the Jessamine among the flowers,
How justly doth a lie
Draw on its head despair!
Among the fragrant spirits of the bowers
The boldest and the strongest still was I.
Although so fair,
Therefore from Heaven
A stronger perfume unto me was given
Than any blossom of the summer hours.
Leland—Jessamine.
Among the flowers no perfume is like mine;
That which is best in me comes from within.
So those in this world who would rise and shine
Should seek internal excellence to win.
And though ’tis true that falsehood and despair
Meet in my name, yet bear it still in mind
That where they meet they perish. All is fair
When they are gone and nought remains behind.
Leland—Jessamine.
And the jasmine flower in her fair young breast,
(O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine flower!)
And the one bird singing alone to his nest.
And the one star over the tower.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—Aux Italiens. St. 13.
It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet,
It made me creep and it made me cold.
Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet
Where a mummy is half unroll’d.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—Aux Italiens.
Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns
Its fragrant lamps, and turns
Into a royal court with green festoons
The banks of dark lagoons.
Henry Timrod—Spring.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 177.