Up from the sweet South comes the lingering May,

Sets the first wind-flower trembling on its stem;

Scatters her violets with lavish hands,

White, blue and amber.

—CELIA THAXTER.

The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods

Grow misty-green with leafing buds,

And violets and wind-flowers sway

Against the throbbing heart of May.

—JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

When springtime comes,

Primrose and violet haunt the mossy bank.

—HENRY G. HEWLETT.

Rosy and white on the wanton breeze

The petals fall from the apple-trees,

And under the hedge where the shade lies wet

Are children, picking the violet.

—F. W. BOURDILLON.

The same sweet sounds are in my ear

My early childhood loved to hear.

The violet there, in soft May dew,

Comes up, as modest and as true.

—WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Farewell to thee, France! but when Liberty rallies

Once more in thy regions, remember me then—

The violet still grows in the depths of thy valleys,

Though withered, thy tears will unfold it again.

—LORD BYRON.

Where the rose doth wear her blushes

Like a garment, and the fair

And modest violets sit together,

Weaving, in mild May weather,

Purples out of dew and air

Fit for any queen to wear.

—ALICE CARY.

Hear the rain whisper,

“Dear violet, come!”

—LUCY LARCOM.

On every sunny hillock spread,

The pale primrose lifts her head;

Rich with sweets, the western gale

Sweeps along the cowslip’d dale;

Every bank, with violets gay,

Smiles to welcome in the May.

—ROBERT SOUTHEY.

The air was soft and fresh and sweet;

The slopes in spring’s new verdure lay,

And wet with dew-drops at my feet

Bloomed the young violets of May.

—JOHN HOWARD BRYANT.

In each hedgerow spring must hasten

Cowslips sweet to set;

And under every leaf, in shadow

Hide a violet.

—ADELAIDE PROCTOR.

The buds of April had burst into bloom on the willow and maple,

Fresh with dew was the sod, with dim blue violets sprinkled.

—D. CHAUNCEY BREWER.

The dream of winter broken,

Behold her, blue and dear,

Shy Violet, sure token

That April’s here!

—FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN.

Not the first violet on a woodland lea

Seemed a more visible gift of Spring than she.

—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

No more shall meads be decked with flowers,

Nor sweetness dwell in rosy bowers,

Nor greenest buds on branches spring,

Nor warbling birds delight to sing,

Nor April violets paint the grove,

If I forsake my Celia’s love.

—THOMAS CAREW.

And O, and O,

The daisies blow,

And the primroses are wakened;

And the violets white

Sit in silver light,

And the green buds are long in the spike end.

—OLD ENGLISH SONG.

A violet that nestles cheek to the mellowed ground;

The humming of a happy brook about its daily round;

The woody breath of pines; the smell of loosening sods;

Such simple links of being,—such common things of God’s.

—ELLA M. BAKER.

Merry, ever-merry May!

Made of sunbeams, shade and showers,

Bursting buds and breathing flowers!

Dripping locked and rosy-vested,

Violet slippered, rainbow crested.

—WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

There were banks of purple violet,

And arbutus, first whisper of the May.

—FRANCES L. MACE.

Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red,

From thee the violet steals its breath in May.

—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,

Running over the club-moss burrs;

I inhaled the violet’s breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and of deity;

Beauty through my senses stole,—

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Now the tender, sweet arbutus

Trails her blossom-clustered vines,

And the many-figured cinquefoil

In the shady hollow twines;

Here, behind this crumbled tree-trunk,

With the cooling showers wet,

Fresh and upright, blooms the sunny

Golden-yellow violet.

—DORA READ GOODALE.

Saintly violets, plucked in bosky dell.

—CLINTON SCOLLARD.