SparrowFarm.com
My Favorite Gardening Quotations
These are a compilation of years of collecting poems about gardening and nature.  
I hope you enjoy them.  And if I'm missing any really good ones, send them to me!  
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit around it eating blackberries.
EB Browning

A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers.
Chinese Proverb
Faith sees the flower in every seed.

The Lord will guide you always;
He will satisfy your needs
in a sun-scorched land,
and will strengthen your frame.  
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.  
Isaiah 58:11

Happiness is the art of making a bouquet
of those flowers within reach.

Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God.  
Job 37:14

He covers the sky with clouds,
He supplies the earth with rain
and maketh the grass grow on the hills.  
Psalm 147:8

Let the beauty of the Lord
rest upon us.  
Psalm 90:17

…still another seed fell on good soil.  
It came up and yielded a crop,
a hundred times more than was sown.
Parable of Jesus

Acknowledge and take heart this day
that the Lord is God in heaven above
and on the earth below.  
There is no other.  
Deuteronomy 4:39

Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden.  
Sir Walter Scott

Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all,
in my hand, little flower –
But if I could understand
what you are, root and all,
And all in all, I should know
what God and man is.  
–Alfred Lord Tennyson

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers
- and never succeeding. Author: Marc Chagall

Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.
Author: French Proverb

Now the summer came to pass
and flowers through the grass joyously sprang,
while all the tribes of birds sang.  
– Walter Von der Vogleweide

…and muse on natures with a poet’s eye.  
–Thomas Campbell

Love your flowers.  
By some subtle sense the dear things
always detect their friends.  
–Julia T. Berrall

When at last I took the time to look
into the heart of a flower,
it opened up a whole new world…
as if a window had been opened
and let in the sun.
-Princess Grace of Monaco

What a desolate place would be
a world without flowers.  
–Clara Balfour

What a pity flowers can utter no sound!
A singing rose, a whispering violet,
a murmuring honeysuckle –
Oh what a rare and exquisite miracle would there be.
Henry Ward Beecher

Shall I sing of happy hours
numbered by opening and closing of flowers.  
– Hartly Coleridge

I know a little garden close,
set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
from dewy morn to dewy night.  
– William Morris

Who can  forget those days
when to announce the appearance of a bird…
or the perfection of a full blown peony,
was glory enough for one morning.  
–Joseph Tsreck

Gather ye roses while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
-Robert Herrick

The windows of my soul, I throw wide open to the sun.  
–John Greenleaf Whittier

A lily has an air, and the sundrop a grace,
And the sweetpea a way, and the heartsense a face –
Yet there’s nothing like the rose when she blows.
-Christina Rosetti “The Rose”

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bend them all about with tiny wings.
-Keats

SANCTUARY:  a sacred asylum (: place of retreat),
a refuge, consecrated to the worship of God.

Come ye apart and rest awhile.  
-Jesus Christ

…with every leaf, a miracle.  
–Walt Whitman

September
By Edwin Fallis

A road like brown ribbon,
A sky that is blue,
A forest of green
With that sky peeping through.

Asters, deep purple,
A grasshopper’s call,
Today it is summer,
Tomorrow is fall.

One of the most delightful things about a garden
is the anticipation it provides.
–W E Johns

A house, though otherwise beautiful,
yet it hath no garden
is more like a prison than a house.
– William Coles

More than anything, I must have flowers, always flowers.
– Claude Monet

For in the true nature of things,
if we will rightly consider,
every green tree is far more glorious
than if it were made of gold and silver.
–Martin Luther

When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy,
there is always the garden.
Minnie Alemonier

Every gardener knows that
under the cloak of winter lies a miracle…
a seed waiting to sprout,
a bulb opening to the light,
a bud straining to unfurl.  
And the anticipation nurtures our dream.
–Barbara Winkler

God has given us memories
that we may have roses in December.

Yes, in the poor man’s garden
grow far more than herbs and flowers –
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
and joy for weary hours.
– Mary Howitt

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture in the lonely shore.
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in it’s roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more.

In the corner of my garden, where the wildflowers grow,
I sit and I admire how God has graced us so.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. – Emerson

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf’s a flower.
-Albert Camus

November has tied me to an old dead tree –  
get word to April to rescue me.
-Tom Wait

Steep thyself in a bowl of summer.
-Virgil

"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do, If bees are few."

Walk lightly in this garden;
the wind may whisper of yesterdays
that time stilled, not broken.
And breathe again words heard but unspoken.  
–Mawmaw Tubby 1951

The sense that we have brought to birth out of the cold and heavy soil,
These blessed fruits and flowers of earth is large reward for all our toil.
-Ruth Pitter

Those that come after me will gather these roses,
and watch as I do now the white wisteria
burst in the sunshine from it’s pale green sheath.  
–Mary Ursula Bethell “Time”

What if you have seen it before, ten thousand times over?  
An apple tree in full blossom is like a message,
sent from heaven to earth, of purity and beauty!  
-Henry Ward Beecher

Nothing in this world is precious
until we know that it will soon be gone.
–Donald Culross Peatrie

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.  
–Pietro Aretino 1537

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.

There is no season such delight can bring, as summer, autumn, winter and
the spring.
-William Browne

Nature gives to every time and season, some beauties of its own. –Charles
Dickens

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. –
Albert Einstein

All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature. –Aristotle

The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of his tail. –Tagore

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass
into nothiness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep full of
sweet dreams,
and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing a flowery band to bind us to
earth. "Endymion"

As for me, I know nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under the trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
Or sleep in bed at night with any one I love,
Or watch honey bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon...
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown,
Or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring...
What stranger miracles are there?
Walt Whitman

"Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8"
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to
pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to
break down and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a
time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time
to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to
cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a
time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of
peace.

Emily Dickinson
A Light exists in Spring not present on the Year at any other period -- when
March is scarcely here. A Color stands abroad on Solitary Fields that
Science cannot overtake but Human Nature feels.

"Where the most beautiful wild-flowers grow; there one's spirit is fed and
poets grow." June 15, 1852, Journal.

"In Wildness is the preservation of the World.... Nature has a place for the
wild clematis as well as for the cabbage."

"The flowers of the earth do not grudge at one another, though one be
more beautiful and fuller of virtue than another; but they stand kindly one
by another, and enjoy one another's virtue."
Jakob Boeme, c. 1600

Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and
be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to
where it bent in the undergrowth; then took the other, as just as fair, and
having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same,
and both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh,
I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I
doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh
somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I
took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

DAFFODILS
William Wordsworth
"I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills,
when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils
beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way,
they stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay:
ten thousand saw I, at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
a poet could not but be gay in such a jocund company;
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought what wealth the show to me had
brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood, t
hey flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude;
and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils."
Quotes to consider for your custom projects
Come forsythia and hyacinth,
join in glad refrain with iris,
squill, and columbine
for spring has come again.

Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.  
–Virgil A. Kraft

"Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be
only one of the instruments, not the composer."
-  Geoffrey B. Charlesworth


The snowdrop is the prophet of the flowers;
It lives and dies upon its bed of snows;
And like a thought of spring it comes and goes.
-George Meredith

April
by Sara Teasdale
The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the backyards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree—
I could not be so sure of spring
Save that it sings in me.

And in green underwood and cover,
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
-Algernon Charles Swinburne

The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts
well out of proportion to their size.
-Gertrude S. Wister

Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
-Reginald Heber

The daffodil is our doorside queen;
She pushes upward the sword already,
to spot with sunshine the early green.
-William Cullen Bryant

Tis my faith that every flower
enjoys the air it breathes.
William Wordsworth

Stars will blossom in the darkness;
Violets bloom beneath the snow.
-Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr

They speak of hope
to the fainting heart,
With a voice of promise
they come and part,
They sleep in dust
through the wintry hours,
They break forth in glory –
bring flowers, bright flowers!
-Felicia D. Hemans

Came the spring with all its splendor,
all its birds and all its blossoms,
all its flowers and leaves and grasses.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Flowers may beckon toward us,
but they speak toward heaven and God.
-Henry Ward Beecher

There is material enough in a single flower
for the ornament of a score of cathedrals.
-John Ruskin

Not a flower but shows some touch
in freckle, streak or stain,
of His unrivall’d pencil.
-William Cowper

The buttercups, bright –eyed and bold,
held up their chalices of gold
to catch the sunshine and the dew.
-Julia C. R. Dorr

I will be the gladdest thing
under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
and not pick one!
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Open afresh your rounds of starry folds,
Ye ardent marigolds.
-John Keats

The Amen of nature is always a flower.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

That God once loved a garden
We learn in Holy Writ.
And seeing gardens in the
Spring, I well can credit it.
-Winifred M. Letts

Flowers are words even a babe may understand.
-Bishop Coxe

Now the earth with many flowers
puts on her spring embroidery.  
–Sappho

All things seem possible in May.  
–Edwin Way Teale “North with the Spring”

Frost locked all the winter,
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits…
Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;
Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane,
Birds sing and pair again
There is no time like Spring,
When life’s alive in everything.
–Christina Rosetti “Spring”

But each spring…
a gardening instinct,
sore as the sap rising in the trees,
stirs within us.  
We look about and decide
to tame another little bit of ground.  
–Lewis Gannett

For lo, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone,
the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.
–Song of Solomon

Spring is a heart full of hope and a shoe full of rain.

Spring is a natural resurrection, an experience in immortality.
–Thoreau

Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,   
Rock’d in the cradle of the western breeze. – William Cowper

BEHOLD
Above, above
All birds in air
Below, below
All earth’s flowers…
Sing out and say
Again the refrain
Behold this lovely world.
Mary Kawena Pukui

Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed
which is upon the face of the earth. –Genesis 1:29

Outside the open window the morning air
is all awash with angels.
– Richard Purdy Wilbur

Just living is not enough,
one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flowers.  
–Hans Christian Anderson

If you truly love nature,
you will find beauty everywhere.  
–Vincent Van Gogh

The earth laughs in flowers.
-Emerson
French:  La Terre rit dans les fleurs.

All the flowers of all the tomorrows
are in the seeds of today.

Flowers always make people better and happier;
They are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul.
-Luther Burbank

And so I find it good to come
for deeper peace to this still room.
For here the heartbeat of the soul
feels less the outer world’s control.
To sit among the flowers all,
the only sound a robin’s call.
The world that hastens aptly on,
falls off and leaves us God alone.

If thou of fortune be bereft
and in they store there be but left, two loaves,
sell one and with the dole
buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

If thou hast two loaves of bread,
then sell one and buy flowers…
For although the bread will nourish thy body,
the flowers will nourish thy soul.

Meet me in the garden.

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
the songs of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
than any place else on earth.

In the corner of my garden,
where the wildflowers grow,
I sit and I admire how
God has graced us so.

God writes the gospel
not in the Bible alone,
but on trees, and flowers,
and clouds, and stars.
Martin Luther

The grass withers, the flowers fade,
the Word of our God stands forever.  
Isaiah 40:8

Awake, North Wind, and come south wind!
Blow upon my garden, that its fragrance may spread abroad.
Song of Solomon  4:16

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake d. 1827

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake d1827

Faith sees the flower in every seed.

Still another seed fell on good soil,
It came up and yielded a crop,
A hundred times more than was sown.

Visit here this quiet nook,
As songbirds rest their wing,
Hearken softly, whisper low,
And perchance you’ll hear them sing.

Who plants a seed beneath the sod,
And waits to see believes in God.

The air is like a butterfly with frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky and sings.
-Joyce Kilmer

Within each bulb a flower
Within each seed a tree
Hidden ‘til its season
Where only God can see.

Emily Dickinson    
The morns are meeker than they were
The nuts are getting brown
The berry's cheek is plumper
The Rose is out of town.
The Maple wears a gayer scarf
the field a scarlet gown
Lest I should be old fashioned I'll put a trinket on.

“The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday.
among the fields, above the sea, among the winds at play;
among the lowing of the herds, the rustling of the trees,
among the singing of the birds, the humming of the bees.
The foolish fears of what may pass, I cast them all away,
among the clover-scented grass, among the new-mown hay;
among the husking of the corn, where drowsy poppies nod,
where ill thoughts die and good are born, out in the fields with God."
In his garden every man may be his own artist without apology or explanation.
–Louise Beebe Wilder “Color in My Garden”

Trees are not known by their leaves, nor even by their blossoms, but by their fruits.
-Eleanor of Aquitaine

There is one great thing, the only thing: To live to see the great day that dawns and
the light that fills the world.
-Intuit song

My garden, with it’s silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy
undulations, affects me like sweet music.  Care stops at the gates and gazes at me
wistfully through the bars.  
– Alexander Smith

The man around the corner keeps experimenting with new flowers every year and
now has quite an extensive list of things he cannot grow.  
–William Vaughn b. 1577 American colonialist

John Burroughs   
If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books,
friends, and nature; and the greatest of these, at least the most constant and always
at hand is nature. Nature we have always with us, an inexhaustible storehouse of that
which moves the heart, appeals to the mind, and fires the imagination, - health to the
body, a stimulus to the intellect, and joy to the soul.

...there's rosemary and rue; these keep seeming and savour all the winter long:
grace and remembrance be to you..." The Winter's Tale -Shakespeare

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow         
Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest, who, armed with golden rod and winged with
the celestial azure, bearest the message of some God. Thou art the muse, who, far
from crowded cities hauntest the sylvan streams,playing on pipes of reed the artless
ditties that come to us as dreams. O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river linger
to kiss thy feet! O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever the world more fair
and sweet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson                    
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones,
they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them.
There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-
bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the
leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all
moments alike.

Keats                                                      
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into
nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams,
and healthy, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow are we wreathing a
flowery band to bind us to earth. "Endymion"

Hymn - "For The Beauty of the Earth"
For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies:
For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light:
For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind's delight,
For the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight:
For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth and friends above; for all gentle thoughts and mild:
Refrain: Lord of all to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, little flower
but if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1869
Celebrating Babies/Children

The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy.  
Psalm 126:3   
                
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born,
I consecrated you. -Jeremiah 1:5   

A wee bit of heaven drifted down from above, an armful of happiness,
a heart full of love.          

A sweet, new blossom of humanity, fresh fallen from God's own home
to flower on earth.     

Children are the hands by which we hold heaven.  Henry Ward
Beecher                        
     
Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, a miracle
happens.             
                                        
Every good and perfect gift is from above.  -James 1:17                          
                                                               
May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
-Psalm 115:15

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you a hope and a future. -Jeremiah 29:11  

The Lord will keep you from all harm - he will watch over your life; the Lord will
watch over your coming and going both now and forever. -Psalm 121:7-8

The Lord bless thee and keep thee,
the Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious to thee:  
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace.
-Numbers 6:24-26

Angels shall guard thee.

God has presented me with a precious gift. Genesis 30:20  

May you be blessed.  1 Samuel 26:25

A new hand to hold, a new heart to love, a new life to lead.     

Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -Robt A. Heinlein

Where there is great love there are always miracles. -Willa Cather      

Babies are such a nice way to start people.  -Don Herrold

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.  -Confucius

God gives all men all earth to love, but since man’s heart is small,
ordains for each one spot should prove beloved over all.
-Rudyard Kipling

May your goodness and love be with me all my life;
and may your house be my home as long as I live.
Based on Psalm 23:6

The HOME where people love God is filled with rich
and beautiful things.
Based on Psalm 24:4

Having someplace to go is a home.
Having someone to love is family.
Having both is a blessing.

Many hearts one family.

Family
Forever, for always, and no matter what.

A house is built with boards and beams
A home is built with love and dreams.

God rest your love upon this door,
Bless this home forever more.

May our faith grow exceedingly
and the charity that each of us shows toward the others abound.
2 Thess. 1:3

Peace be to this house
And to all who dwell in it
Peace be to them that enter
And to them that depart

Bless this house which is our home
May we welcome all who come.

Life’s riches other rooms adorn
But in a kitchen home is born.

Marriage/Romantic Love

Life is good.
Love makes it amazing.

Once upon a time...
they began their forever with a promise.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved:  
loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
-Victor Hugo

Come, put your hand in mine,
True love, long sought and found at last.
-Henry Van Dyke

In the consciousness of belonging together, in the sense of constancy,
resides the sanctity, the beauty of matrimony, which helps us to endure pain
more easily, to enjoy happiness doubly, and to give rise to the fullest and
finest development of our nature.
-Fanny Lewald 1811-1889

We were two and had but one heart. – Francois Villon

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short. –
Andre Maurois

Cherish
To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer or
poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.
Book of Common Prayer



Robert Browning.  

…love will enter cloaked in friendship’s name. –Ovid

In dreams and in love there are not impossibilities. –James Arany

Love is not a fight, but it is something worth fighting for.

What is the earth with all its art, verse, music worth – compared with love,
found, gained and kept?
Robert Browning
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.  I love you
not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me.  I
love you for the part of me that you bring out.
-Eliz. Barrett Browning.

What binds us together is the prayer, the promise and the lifting of each other’s
burdens, the commitment we have made, and kept, to be companions to each other
on the road we share.  What binds us together is the laying down of our lives for
each other in a way that we cannot even explain. –Robert Benson

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm:
For love is strong as death…
Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can the floods drown it.
SoS 8:6-7

I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life!
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

To see coming toward you the face that will mean an end of oneness is - far more
than birth itself – the beginning of life.   –Holly Roth

The world has little to bestow where two fond hearts in equal love are joined.
-Anna Laetitia Barbauld

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep, the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
-Shakespeare

Waking beside you is more lovely than any dream.

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.

Love is not written on paper, for paper can be erased.  Nor is it etched in stone, for
stone can be broken.  But it is inscribed on a heart and there it shall remain forever.

TO MY DEAR AND LOVING HUSBAND
Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man
Compare with me, ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches the east doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.

May God be with you
and bless you.
May you see your
children's children.
May you be poor in misfortunes
and rich in blessings.
May you know nothing
but happiness
from this day forward.
Irish Marriage Blessing

THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS
William Shakespeare                      
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth¹s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love¹s not Time¹s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle¹s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

"APACHE BLESSING"               
"Now you will feel no rain for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth."

Christopher Marlowe                                  
Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys,
groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow
rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses, With a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers,
and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.
A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these
pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.

Parenthood/Family

Family:  Famiglia (IT), Famille (FR), Familie (GR), Familia (SP),
De Familie (dutch)

A mother’s love is like a rose…
Always blooming, forever caring
Always giving, forever sharing.

We’ve been mother and daughter
From the very start,
But the friendship we’ve found
Is God’s gift to my heart.

A mother’s love perceives no impossibilities. –Cornelia Paddock

A mother’s love is like a rose –
Each passing day it grows and grows.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find
forgiveness.
Honore de Balzac

I remember my mother’s prayers, and they have always followed me.  They have
clung to me all my life. –Abraham Lincoln

He didn’t tell me how to live;
He lived, and let me watch him do it.
-Clarence Budington Kelland

Nothing in life can hold more joys or more tears, can make you more proud or more
tired, or give back more rewards than being a mother.

Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have
your heart go walking around outside your body.  ~Elizabeth Stone

The moment a child is born,
the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed, but the mother, never.
A mother is something absolutely new.
~Rajneesh

A family is like a patchwork quilt with kindness gently sewn,
each piece an original with beauty all its own.
With threads of warmth and happiness, it's lightly stitched together
to last in love throughout the years; a family is forever. -anon