The Violet Book

by Unknown

CHAPTER ONE

The air is white with snow-flakes clinging;

Between the gusts that come and go

Methinks I hear the woodlark singing.

Or can it be the breeze is bringing

The breath of violets?—Ah, no!

The air is white with snow-flakes clinging.

It is my lady’s voice that’s stringing

Its beads of gold to song; and so

Methinks I hear the woodlark singing.

The violets I see upspringing

Are in my lady’s eyes, I trow;

The air is white with snow-flakes clinging.

—JOHN PAYNE.

A chaplet on her head she wore

(Heigho, the chaplet!);

Of sweet violets therein was store—

She’s sweeter than the violet.

—EDMUND SPENSER.

Tell me, this sweet morn,

Tell me all you know,—

Tell me, was I born?

Tell me, did I grow?

Fell I from the blue

Like a drop of rain,

Then, as violets do,

Blossomed up again?

—ROBERT BUCHANAN.

Misty grew the violets of her eyes.

—HELEN B. BOSTWICK.

The violet loves the sunny bank,

The cowslip loves the lea,

The scarlet creeper loves the elm;

But I love—thee.

—BAYARD TAYLOR.

Your name pronounced brings to my heart

A feeling like the violet’s breath.

—COVENTRY PATMORE.

Out from the leaves of my “Lucille”

Falls a faded violet.

Sweet and faint as its fragrance steal

Out from the leaves of my “Lucille”

Tender memories, and I feel

A sense of longing and regret.

Out from the leaves of my “Lucille”

Falls a faded violet.

—WALTER LEARNED.

Be other brows by pleasure’s wreath

Or glory’s coronal oppressed,

To me the humblest flower seems best,

Some sweet wild bloom with dews still wet.

So, Love, but kiss a violet—

O, Love, but kiss a violet—

And fling it to my breast!

—GRACE GREENWOOD.

Within my reach!

I could have touched!

I might have chanced that way!

Soft sauntered through the village,

Sauntered as soft away!

So unsuspected violets

Within the fields lie low,

Too late for striving fingers

That passed an hour ago.

—EMILY DICKINSON.

The silent, soft and humble heart

In the violet’s hidden sweetness breathes.

—JAMES G. PERCIVAL.

Perchance the violets o’er my dust

Will half betray their buried trust,

And say, their blue eyes full of dew,

“She loved you better than you knew.”

—ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

Nature does not recognize

This strife that rends the earth and skies;

No war-dreams vex the winter sleep of clover-heads and daisy-eyes:

When blood her grassy altar wets,

She sends the pitying violets

To heal the outrage with their bloom and cover it with soft regrets.

—ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs,

Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers

Passed o’er thy head; many light hearts and wings,

Which now are dead, lodged in thy living bowers.

And still a new succession sings and flies;

Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot

Towards the old and still enduring skies;

While the low violet thrives at their root.

—HENRY VAUGHAN.

Blue eyes

Whose sleepy lid like snow on violets lies.

—THOMAS MOORE.

Love comes and goes as the free wind blows,

That asks not, as it passes,

If it touches the head of the roses red

Or the violets down in the grasses.

—HOSEA G. BLAKE.

Little maid, a violet

Is knocking at your door,

Eagerly its message sweet

Repeating o’er and o’er:

“Some one sent me with his love,—

Take me, I implore!”

—ANONYMOUS.

Where fall the tears of love the rose appears,

And where the ground is bright with friendship’s tears,

Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue,

Spring, glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.

—WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

We shall be, as we are,

(Still breathes the secret strain)

Within our Father’s loving care

When violets come again.

—EMILY S. OAKEY.

Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white,

On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light,

O’er the cold winter beds of their late-waking roots

The frosty flake eddies, the ice crystal shoots.

—JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

When Roman fields are red with cyclamen,

And in the palace gardens you may find,

Under great leaves and sheltering briony-bind,

Clusters of cream-white violets, O then

The ruined city of immortal men

Must smile, a little to her fate resigned.

—EDMUND W. GOSSE.

Beside me, where I rest,

Thy loving hands will set

The flowers that please me best,

Moss-rose and violet.

—WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Once in a dream I saw the flowers

That bud and bloom in Paradise;

More fair they are than waking eyes

Have seen in all this world of ours.

And faint the perfume-bearing rose,

And faint the lily on its stem,

And faint the perfect violet,

Compared with them.

—CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

I do not know

The subtle secret of the snow,

That hides away the violets

Till April teaches them to blow.

Enough for me

Their tender loveliness to see,

Assured that little things and large

Fulfil God’s purpose equally.

—MARY BRADLEY.

Violet, sweet violet!

Thine eyes are full of tears;

Are they wet,

Even yet,

With the thoughts of other years?

Or with gladness are they full,

For the night so beautiful,

And longing for those far-off spheres?

Violet, dear violet,

Thy blue eyes are only wet

With joy and love of Him who sent thee,

And for the fulfilling sense

Of that glad obedience

Which made thee all that Nature meant thee.

—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

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CHAPTER TWO

Violets, shy violets,

How many hearts with thee compare!

—ANONYMOUS.

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