Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Poppy (Papaver)
I sing the Poppy! The frail snowy weed!
The flower of Mercy! that within its heart
Doth keep “a drop serene” for human need,
A drowsy balm for every bitter smart.
For happy hours the Rose will idly blow—
The Poppy hath a charm for pain and woe.
Mary A. Barr—White Poppies.
Central depth of purple,
Leaves more bright than rose,
Who shall tell what brightest thought
Out of darkness grows?
Who, through what funereal pain,
Souls to love and peace attain?
Leigh Hunt—Songs and Chorus of the Flowers. Poppies.
We are slumberous poppies,
Lords of Lethe downs,
Some awake and some asleep,
Sleeping in our crowns.
What perchance our dreams may know,
Let our serious beauty show.
Leigh Hunt—Songs and Chorus of the Flowers. Poppies.
The poppy opes her scarlet purse of dreams.
Scharmel Iris—Early Nightfall.
Through the dancing poppies stole
A breeze most softly lulling to my soul.
Keats—Endymion. Bk. I. L. 565.
The poppies hung
Dew-dabbled on their stalks.
Keats—Endymion. Bk. I. L. 681.
Every castle of the air
Sleeps in the fine black grains, and there
Are seeds for every romance, or light
Whiff of a dream for a summer night.
Amy Lowell—Sword Blades and Poppy Seed.
Visions for those too tired to sleep,
These seeds cast a film over eyes which weep.
Amy Lowell—Sword Blades and Poppy Seed.
In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard among the guns below.
Col. John McCrae—In Flander’s Fields. (We shall not Sleep.)
Find me next a Poppy posy,
Type of his harangues so dozy.
Moore—Wreaths for the Ministers.
And would it not be proud romance
Falling in some obscure advance,
To rise, a poppy field of France?
William A. Percy—Poppy Fields.
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtile virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
Christina G. Rossetti—“Consider the Lilies of the Field.”
Gentle sleep!
Scatter thy drowsiest poppies from above;
And in new dreams not soon to vanish, bless
My senses with the sight of her I love.
Horace Smith—Poppies and Sleep.
And far and wide, in a scarlet tide,
The poppy’s bonfire spread.
Bayard Taylor—Poems of the Orient. The Poet in the East. St. 4.
Summer set lip to earth’s bosom bare,
And left the flushed print in a poppy there:
Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,
And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.
With burnt mouth red like a lion’s it drank
The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,
And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine
When the eastern conduits ran with wine.
Francis Thompson—The Poppy.
Bring poppies for a weary mind
That saddens in a senseless din.
Wm. Winter—The White Flag.