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.