4. Write a paragraph and describe your favourite flower(s).

The Empire of Flowers

At the end of May the alleys in the garden become more and more light coloured. The perfumed lilies, white like frothy milk, raise their proud heads to the boundless blue of the sky. All around them the morning glory grew up trying to grasp their creepers by the roof of this temple.

The lilac is sad he is in blossom too early, as it would have wanted the perfumed white indented jasmine to be his bride because she allures and tickles him with her drowsy aroma. It's time to be in blossom the lofty lithe dahlia. Her multicolored face spoils herself in the Sun's warm dazzling light at the beginning of summer. 
She is competed by the sturdy but short gladiolus. She will string her cups on the thick stem like a necklace.
The chrysanthemums are still too young, but they will learn the grace and the womanhood from their elder sisters. The old lime stands like a guard above the gate amazing me with his fluffy smell. His perfumed tassels call the bees from the little and soft flowers. 
The butterflies rest a little on a petal, pamper it and love it like real lowers. The sprightly wind, the roomer of the summer days is bewildered: where could he stop with so many beauties around him? The fairy flowers are waiting for his fresh cool swing and he kisses them surreptitiously. Inside this empire fuel of fine smell, delicate dances of beautifully colored flowers, full of peace, calm and harmony, I spend hours and hours.
Late in the evening the flowering tabacco and petunias are talking about everything. I guess their secrets and pleased with them, I go to my soft bed smelling of lavender, leaving this empire of flowers invaded by the silver moonlight. 
Early in the morning I shall pick the pearl drops up the leaves and I shall sip lustily in the hope that I shall borrow one moment of eternity from the eternity of the nature. 

Mihaela Tanase

The Island of Happiness

Cosmin Tanase

Quotations about Flowers 

"Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose." (Alfred Milner, 1854-1925, "Paradise Lost")

"It might well be said of me that here I have merely made up a bunch of other men's flowers, and provided nothing of my own but the string to bind them." (Michel de Montagne, 1533- 1592, "Essays")

"The flowers anew, returning seasons bring;
But beauty faded has no second spring."
(Ambrose Philips, 1675- 1749)

"Deep in their roots,
All flowers keep the light."
(Theodore Roethke, 1908-1963)

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world"
(Margaret Atwood -"As I Walked Out One Evening'")

"Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile, some have a sad expression, some are pensive and diffident, others again are plain, honest and upright."
(Henry Ward Beecher, 1813-1887)

"My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!"
(Lord Byron, 1788-1824)

"On This Day I Complete my Thirty -Sixth Year"
"From the midst of the fountain of delights rises something bitter that chokes them all amongst the flowers."
(Lucretius, 99-55 BC, "De Rerum Natura")

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs.
(John Keats, 1795-1821, "Ode to a Nightingale")

She's somewhere in the sunlight strong,
Her tears are in the falling rain,
She calls me in the wind's soft song,
And with the flowers she comes again.
(Richard Le Gallienne, 1866-1947, "Song")

Selected by Maria Dumitru