And what could be more drippingly quaint than his song to 'Violets,' which breathes so gentle and real a sympathy with its subject, that we almost imagine it was written in those early times when men communed with Nature in her own audible language. It is even more beautiful than Herrick's
'Why do ye weep, sweet babe? Can tears
Speak grief in you, who were but born
Just as the modest morn
Teemed her refreshing dew?'
We give but a fragment of the Violet.
'Violet! sweet violet!
Thine eyes are full of tears;
Are they wet
Even yet