TO VIOLET

(With a Bunch of Namesakes)

THERE is a maid—I am afraid

To give her name to you—

Who makes great pets of violets—

I wish I were one, too.

Once in her youth, this all is truth,

She took some up to smell;—

In some strange way the records say,

Into her eyes they fell——

And there they stayed—they never fade—

She looks at me—sometimes,—

And then—Oh, then I seize my pen

And fall to writing rhymes.

But, sad mischance! My consonants

Desert—four vowels, too;

A, E, O, I, take wings, that’s why

My rhymes are filled with U.

Robert Cameron Rogers.