Chapter SEVEN

Soft-throated South, breathing of summer’s ease,
Sweet breath, whereof the violet’s life is made!
--GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP.

I heard the laughter of a brook,
A tiny brook, that babbled through
The fields and told the tales it took
Of bird and reed and water-thing;
And stooping low I saw a gleam
Of violets that nodded to
Their gay reflection in the stream.
--MARY F. FAXON.

More shy than the shy violet
Hiding when the wind doth pass.
--ELLEN M. CORTISSOZ.

The ferns bend low, the grasses lean,
As doing homage to a queen,
The fairest queens that ever smiled
On cavalier, or king beguiled:
Oh, sweet and tender violets!
--M. D. TOLMAN.

I go to the river there below
Where in bunches the violets grow,
And sun and shadow meet.
--HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Beneath
Peep the blue violets out of black loam.
--RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

The violet varies from the lily as far
As oak from elm.
--ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

Lover of each gracious thing
Which makes glad the summer-tide,
From the daisies clustering
And the violets, purple-eyed,
To those shy and hidden blooms
Which in forest coverts stay.
--ANONYMOUS.

I thread the rustling ranks, that hide
Their misty violet treasure.
--BAYARD TAYLOR.

But when the green world buds to blossoming,
Keep violets for the spring, and love for youth,
Love that should dwell with beauty, mirth and hope:
Or if a later, sadder love be born,
Let this not look for grace beyond its scope,
But give itself.
--CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned.
--JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Sisters, ere the moon is set,
Twine the white, white violet,
While the dews are on it yet,
With the myriad-starrèd mignonette.
--FORCEYTHE WILSON.

Voluptuous bloom and fragrance rare
The summer to its rose may bring;
Far sweeter to the wooing air
The hidden violet of the spring.
--BAYARD TAYLOR.

And near the snow-drop’s tender white and green,
The violet in its screen.
--HENRY TIMROD.

Pale marguerites, that swayed with dainty grace
To every breeze, the violet’s sweet, shy face,
And heart’sease, wonder-eyed.
--J. TORREY CAPEN.

Oh, those gardens dear and far,
Where the wild wind-fairies are!
Though we see not, we can hearken
To them when the spring skies darken,
Singing clearly, singing purely,
Songs of far-off Elfland surely,
And they pluck the wild wind posies,
Lilies, violets and roses.
--PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.

Miss Violet displays no hood,
Nor garbs herself as violets should--
She sports a witching hat;
Nor is she found in dim retreat,
But often on the crowded street
Her boots go pit-a-pat.
--SAMUEL MINTURN PECK.

And give my simple thought the skill to know
What interchanging hints between us pass;
What sense of joy it is that thrills me so
Whene’er I see blue violets in the grass.
--ISAAC B. CHOATE.

Here eglantine embalmed the air,
Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;
The primrose pale, and violet flower,
Found in each cliff a narrow bower.
--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

It trembled off the keys,--a parting kiss
So sweet,--the angel slept upon his sword
As through the gate of Paradise we swept,--
Partakers of creation’s primal bliss!
--The air was heavy with the breath
Of violets and love till death--
Forgetful of eternal banishment,
Deep down the dusk of passion-haunted ways,
Lost in the dreaming alchemies of tone,
Drenched in the dew no other wings frequent,
--Our thirsting hearts drank in the breath
Of violets and love in death--
There was no world, no flesh, no boundary line--
Spirit to spirit--chord and dissonance,
Beyond the jealousy of space or time
His life in one low cry broke over mine!
--The waking angel drew a shuddering breath
Of violets and love and death.
--MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON.

Bay leaves between
And primroses green
Embellish the sweet violet.
--EDMUND SPENSER.

Better to smell the violet cool
Than sip the glowing wine;
Better to hark a hidden brook
Than watch a diamond shine.
--GEORGE MACDONALD.

Upon the water’s velvet edge
The purple blossoms breathe delight,
Close nestled to the grassy sedge
As sweet as dawn, as dark as night.
O brook and branches, far away,
My heart keeps time with you today!
“The violets--the violets!”
--FRANCES L. MACE.

Call the crowfoot and the crocus,
Call the pale anemone,
Call the violet and the daisy,
Clothed with careful modesty.
--PHŒBE CARY.

The mosses are wet
Under chestnut and thorn
With blossoms new-born
Of dim violet.
--JOHN A. SYMONDS.

Give me only a bud from the trees
Or a blade of grass in morning dew,
Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue,
I could look on it forever.
--SYDNEY DOBELL.

How could I forget
To beg of thee, dear violet!
Some of thy modesty,
That blossoms here as well, unseen,
As if before the world thou’dst been,
O give to strengthen me.
--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.
--WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

An emerald robe o’er all the fields is drawn;
Here are cowslips, there the violets appear;
The rill’s low laughter, children’s joyous words,
The ploughman’s chorus, with the song of birds,
In mingled cadences, are heard afar and near.
--JOSIAH RICE TAYLOR.

All the world is blooming, wherefore sigh?
Violets amid the grasses lie,
And the wild bees with their girdles bright
Climb up dazzling shafts of dazzling light;
And on cowslips fall, in golden play,
Shadows of the swallows on their way.
--MRS. WHITON-STONE.

One loves a baby face, with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As these were all the little locks could bear.
--ROBERT BROWNING.

The sea is growing summer blue,
But fairer, sweeter than the smiling sky,
Or bashful violet with tender eye,
Is she whose love for me will never die,--
I love you, darling, only you!
--ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

“Use! Use! Use!”
I cried impatiently;--“nothing but use!
As if God never made a violet,
Or hung a harebell!”
--J. G. HOLLAND.

The pride of every grove I chose,
The violet sweet and lily fair,
The dappled pink and blushing rose,
To deck my charming Chloe’s hair.
--MATTHEW PRIOR.

’Twas a child
In whose large eyes of blue there shone, indeed,
Something to waken wonder. Never sky
In noontide depth, or softly breaking dawn--
Never the dew in new-born violet’s cup,
Lay so entranced in purity.
--NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Violets, faint with love’s perfume,
Lie hid in tall green grasses.
--MARY E. BLAKE.