# Poppies

Poppies are a group of a flowering plants, many of which are grown in gardens for their colorful flowers.

## Quotes

* But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed.
** Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter (1790).
* When poor Mama long restless lies She drinks the poppy's juice; That liquor soon can close her eyes, And slumber soft produce: O then my sweet, my happy boy Will thank the Poppy-flower, Which brings the sleep to dear Mama, At midnight's darksome hour.
** Sara Coleridge, Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children (1853)
* Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high aesthetic band, If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand.
** W. S. Gilbert, Patience (1881), Act I.
* Not poppy nor mandragora Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep Which thou owedst yesterday.
** William Shakespeare, Othello (1604), Act III, scene iii; Iago, of Othello.
* Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro Languescit moriens; lassove papavera collo Demisere caput, pluvia cum forte gravantur.
** His snowy neck reclines upon his breast, Like a fair flow'r by the keen share oppress'd: Like a white poppy sinking on the plain, Whose heavy head is overcharg'd with rain.
** Virgil, The Aeneid, IX, 435 (trans. John Dryden).

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 613-614.
* 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.
** John Keats, Endymion (1818), Book I, line 565.
* The poppies hung Dew-dabbled on their stalks.
** John Keats, Endymion (1818), Book I, line 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.
** Thomas 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, Stanza 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 clipped 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.
** William Winter, The White Flag.