Celia Thaxter Quotes
Celia Thaxter was an American author and poet who lived during the 19th century. Thaxter’s poems are often about the sea and nature, which she experienced during her life on Appledore Island in Maine. Her work has been praised for its simplicity, sincerity, and descriptive power. Here are some of the best quotes from Celia Thaxter that will inspire and motivate you to be your best self.
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As I work among my flowers, I find myself talking to them, reasoning and remonstrating with them, and adoring them as if they were human beings. Much laughter I provoke among my friends by so doing, but that is of no consequence. We are on such good terms, my flowers and I.
Celia Thaxter -
There shall be an eternal summer in the grateful heart.
Celia Thaxter -
Like the musician, the painter, the poet and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made.
Celia Thaxter -
Soon will set in the fitful weather, with fierce gales and sullen skies and frosty air, and it will be time to tuck up safely my roses and lillies and the rest for their winter sleep beneath the snow, where I never forget them, but ever dream of their wakening in happy summers yet to be.
Celia Thaxter -
Sad soul, take comfort, nor forget. That sunrise never failed us yet.
Celia Thaxter -
When the snow is still blowing against the window-pane in January and February and the wild winds are howling without, what pleasure it is to plan for summer that is to be.
Celia Thaxter -
As the days go on toward July, the earth becomes dry and all the flowers begin to thirst for moisture. Then from the hillside, some warm, still evening, the sweet rain-song of the robin echoes clear, and next day we wake up to a dim morning; soft flecks of cloud bar the sun’s way, fleecy vapors steal across the sky, the southwest wind blows lightly, rippling the water into little waves that murmur melodiously as they kiss the shore.
Celia Thaxter -
As I hold the flower in my hand and think of trying to describe it, I realize how poor a creature I am, how impotent are words in the presence of such perfection.
Celia Thaxter -
If death were the exception and not the rule, and we were not so swiftly to follow, these separations would be intolerably sad. We know no more of our next change of life than we knew of this before we were born into it; but that which we call death is merely change, who can doubt?
Celia Thaxter -
Oh, I never meant, in my old age, to become subject to the thrall of a love like this; it is almost dreadful, so absorbing, so stirring down to the deeps. For the tiny creature is so old and wise and sweet, and so fascinating in his sturdy common sense and clear intelligence; and his affection for me is a wonderful, exquisite thing, the sweetest flower that has bloomed for me in all my life through.
Celia Thaxter -
No sadder sound salutes you than the clear, Wild laughter of the loon.
Celia Thaxter -
The heart of God through his creation stirs, We thrill to feel it, trembling as the flowers That die to live again, his messengers, To keep faith firm in these sad souls of ours. The waves of Time may devastate our lives, The frosts of age may check our failing breath, They shall not touch the spirit that survives Triumphant over doubt and pain and death.
Celia Thaxter -
He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul.
Celia Thaxter
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Oh, I never meant, in my old age, to become subject to the thrall of a love like this; it is almost dreadful, so absorbing, so stirring down to the deeps. For the tiny creature is so old and wise and sweet, and so fascinating in his sturdy common sense and clear intelligence; and his affection for me is a wonderful, exquisite thing, the sweetest flower that has bloomed for me in all my life through.
Celia Thaxter -
No sadder sound salutes you than the clear, Wild laughter of the loon.
Celia Thaxter -
The heart of God through his creation stirs, We thrill to feel it, trembling as the flowers That die to live again, his messengers, To keep faith firm in these sad souls of ours. The waves of Time may devastate our lives, The frosts of age may check our failing breath, They shall not touch the spirit that survives Triumphant over doubt and pain and death.
Celia Thaxter -
He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul.
Celia Thaxter -
Look to the East, where up the lucid sky; the morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair.
Celia Thaxter -
It is curious that the leaf should so love the light and the root so hate it.
Celia Thaxter -
It seems to me the worst of all the plagues is the slug, the snail without a shell. He is beyond description repulsive, a mass of sooty, shapeless slime, and he devours everything.
Celia Thaxter -
This very act of planting a seed in the earth has in it to me something beautiful. I always do it with a joy that is largely mixed with awe.
Celia Thaxter -
Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made. And he is born to happiness in this vale of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that earth can giver her children, joy that is tranquil, innocent, uplifting, unfailing.
Celia Thaxter -
The summer day was spoiled with fitful storm; At night the wind died and the soft rain dropped; With lulling murmur, and the air was warm, And all the tumult and the trouble stopped.
Celia Thaxter -
O happy, happy morning! O dear, familiar place! / O warm, sweet tears of Heaven, fast falling on my face! / O well-remembered, rainy wind, blow all my care away, / That I may be a child again this blissful morn of May.
Celia Thaxter -
When in these fresh mornings I go into my garden before any one is awake, I go for the time being into perfect happiness.
Celia Thaxter -
Last week, when I went early into my garden, a rose-breasted grosbeak was sitting on the fence. Oh, he was beautiful as a flower. I hardly dared to breathe, I did not stir, and we gazed at each other fully five minutes before he concluded to move.
Celia Thaxter
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Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising than the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof. Take that Poppy seed, for instance: it lies in your palm, the merest atom of matter, hardly visible, a speck, a pin’s point in bulk, but within it is imprisoned a spirit of beauty ineffable, which will break its bonds and emerge from the dark ground and blossom in a splendor so dazzling as to baffle all powers of description.
Celia Thaxter -
The eternal sound of the sea on every side has a tendency to wear away the edge of human thought and perception.
Celia Thaxter -
So deeply is the gardener’s instinct implanted in my soul, I really love the tools with which I work; the iron fork, the spade, the hoe, the rake, the trowel, and the watering pot are pleasant objects in my eyes.
Celia Thaxter -
Dear little head, that lies in calm content Within the gracious hollow that God made In every human shoulder, where He meant Some tired head for comfort should be laid.
Celia Thaxter -
I am fully and intensely aware that plants are conscious of love and respond to it as they do to nothing else.
Celia Thaxter -
This very act of planting a seed in the earth has in it to me something beautiful. I always do it with a joy that is largely mixed with awe.
Celia Thaxter -
Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made. And he is born to happiness in this vale of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that earth can giver her children, joy that is tranquil, innocent, uplifting, unfailing.
Celia Thaxter -
The summer day was spoiled with fitful storm; At night the wind died and the soft rain dropped; With lulling murmur, and the air was warm, And all the tumult and the trouble stopped.
Celia Thaxter -
O happy, happy morning! O dear, familiar place! / O warm, sweet tears of Heaven, fast falling on my face! / O well-remembered, rainy wind, blow all my care away, / That I may be a child again this blissful morn of May.
Celia Thaxter -
When in these fresh mornings I go into my garden before any one is awake, I go for the time being into perfect happiness.
Celia Thaxter -
Last week, when I went early into my garden, a rose-breasted grosbeak was sitting on the fence. Oh, he was beautiful as a flower. I hardly dared to breathe, I did not stir, and we gazed at each other fully five minutes before he concluded to move.
Celia Thaxter -
Across the narrow beach we flit, One little sand-piper and I; And fast I gather, bit by bit, The scattered drift-wood, bleached and dry, The wild waves reach their hands for it, The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit, One little sand-piper and I.
Celia Thaxter -
To stand by the beds at sunrise and see the flowers awake is a heavenly delight.
Celia Thaxter
