Sunflowers

Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun's revolving splendour.

Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are an annual plant native to the Americas that possess a large inflorescence (flowering head). The sunflower got its name from its huge, fiery blooms, whose shape and image is often used to depict the sun. The sunflower has a rough, hairy stem, broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves and circular heads of flowers. The heads consist of 1,000-2,000 individual flowers joined together by a receptacle base. From the Americas, sunflower seeds were brought to Europe in the 16th century, where, along with sunflower oil, they became a widespread cooking ingredient. Sunflower leaves can be used as cattle feed, while the stems contain a fibre which may be used in paper production.

Quotes

• Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
  Who gazest ever true and tender
  On the sun's revolving splendour.
  • Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Magico Prodigioso (1637), scene 3. Shelley's translation.

• Restless sunflower; cease to move.
  • Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Magico Prodigioso (1637), scene 3. Shelley's translation.

• But one, the lofty follower of the Sun,
  Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves
  Drooping all night; and, when he warm returns,
  Points her enamoured bosom to his ray.
  • James Thomson, The Seasons, Summer (1727), line 216.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 768-69.

• Ah, Sunflower, weary of time,
  Who countest the steps of the sun;
  Seeking after that sweet golden clime,
  Where the traveller's journey is done;
  
  Where the youth pined away with desire,
  And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
  Arise from their graves, and aspire
  Where my Sunflower wishes to go!
  • William Blake, The Sunflower.

• The Sunflow'r, thinking 'twas for him foul shame
  To nap by daylight, strove t' excuse the blame;
  It was not sleep that made him nod, he said,
  But too great weight and largeness of his head.
  • Abraham Cowley, Of Plants, Book IV. Of Flowers. The Poppy, line 102.

• With zealous step he climbs the upland lawn,
  And bows in homage to the rising dawn;
  Imbibes with eagle eye the golden ray,
  And watches, as it moves, the orb of day.
  • Erasmus Darwin, Loves of the Plants, Canto I, line 225.

• Space for the sunflower, bright with yellow glow,
  To court the sky.
  • Caroline Gilman, To the Ursulines.

• Eagle of flowers! I see thee stand,
  And on the sun's noon-glory gaze;
  With eye like his, thy lids expand,
  And fringe their disk with golden rays:
  Though fix'd on earth, in darkness rooted there,
  Light is thy element, thy dwelling air,
  Thy prospect heaven.
  • James Montgomery, The Sunflower.

• As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets,
  The same look which she turn'd when he rose.
  • Thomas Moore, Believe Me, if all Those Endearing Young Charms.