These fall-time violets seem

Like a dream within a dream.

—ANONYMOUS.

O that I were listening under the olives!

So should I hear behind in the woodland

The peasants talking. Either a woman,

A wrinkled grandame, stands in the sunshine,

Stirs the brown soil in an acre of violets—

Large odorous violets—and answers slowly

A child’s swift babble; or else at noon