That wherever a March wind sighs,
He sets the jewel-prints of his feet
In violets blue as your eyes.”
American writers have, on the whole, given the violet a more prominent place than have their English brethren of the lyre. Bryant’s pages, for instance, are fragrant with its perfume, and he has, in special, immortalized the yellow variety in more than one finely turned stanza.
If most of the world’s great bards have been reluctant to give Lady Violet her due, not so the numerous rank and file of “minor poets.” The verse of Alice Cary, Lucy Larcom, Grace Greenwood, Elizabeth Akers, Adelaide Proctor and dozens of others is a garden of wild-flowers, with the violet leading the dance. Some of the prettiest conceits occur in the writings of authors so obscure that their names are unfamiliar to most readers. For instance, one must look far for a volume of poetry bearing the name of Ethel M. Kelley; yet these fine lines are attributed to her:
“In her hair the sunbeams nest,
And in her eyes the violets blow,
While in the summer of her breast
The songbird thoughts flit to and fro.”
The compiler of this book has spent many pleasant hours in culling his violets from the immense field of English and American poetry. Another volume of equal size could readily be made up from extracts containing references to the flower, to say nothing of German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Scandinavian poetry, which has not been considered in his quest.