In my breast

Spring wakens too; and my regret

Becomes an April violet,

And buds and blossoms like the rest.

—ALFRED TENNYSON.

Deep violets you liken to

The kindest eyes that look on you

Without a thought disloyal.

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

To thee the nymphs of the forest offer their store of lilies,

And at thy feet fair Nais lays her violets pale.

—VIRGIL.

The wind sprang up in the tree-tops

And shrieked with a voice of death,

But the rough-voiced breeze, that shook the trees,

Was touched with a violet’s breath.

—PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR.

One morn a lad cried in the street,

“Fresh violets!” and, as in answer sweet,

A bluebird flung, bouquet-like, clear and strong,

Athwart the misty window, his first song.

—WILLIAM STRUTHERS.

The April morn

Climbs softly up the eastern sky,

And glimmers through the milk-white thorn,

Or dances where the violets lie.

—SAMUEL MINTURN PECK.

April violets glow

In wayside nooks, close clustering into groups,

Like shy elves hiding from the traveler’s eye.

—THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

Violets begin to blush;

Speedwell opens too her eye

And the kingcup wooes the sky.

—EDWARD CAPERN.

It isn’t raining rain to me, but fields of clover bloom,

Where any buccaneering bee can find a bed and room;

A health unto the happy, and a fig for him who frets!

It isn’t raining rain to me, it’s raining violets.

—ANONYMOUS.

She walked across the fields icebound,

Like some shy, sunny hint of spring,

And stooping suddenly she found

A violet, a dainty thing,

Which shunned the chilly light of day

Until sweet Aprille came that way.

—HARRISON ROBERTSON.

The violet trills, through the bluebird,

Of the heaven that within her she feels.

—LUCY LARCOM.

Like those same winds when, startled from their lair,

They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks

From icy caves, even as thy clear looks

Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care.

—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

And now the other violets are crowding up to see

What welcome in this blustering world may chance for them to be.

They lift themselves on slender stems in every shaded place,

Heads over heads, all turned one way, wonder in every face.

—LUCY LARCOM.

It is April, crying sore and weeping

O’er the chilly earth so brown and bare.

“When I went away,” she murmurs, sobbing,

“All my violet banks were starred with blue;

Who, O who has been here, basely robbing

Bloom and odor from the fragrant crew?”

Thus she plaineth. Then ten million voices

Tiny, murmurous, like drops of rain,

Raised in song as when the wind rejoices,

Ring the answer, “We are here again!”

—SARAH CHANNING WOOLSEY.

Now fades the last long streak of snow,

Now bourgeons every maze of quick

About the flowering squares, and thick

By ashen roots the violets grow.

—ALFRED TENNYSON.

Violets now, that strew

The green lap of the new-come spring.

—WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

Elder boughs were budding yet,

Oaken boughs looked wintry still,

But primrose and veined violet

In the mossful turf were set,

While mating birds made haste to sing

And build with right good-will.

—CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

Violets,

Which April ne’er forgets!

—EMILY S. OAKEY.

Sweetly breathing, vernal air,

That with kind warmth doth repair

Winter’s ruins; from whose breast

All the gums and spice o’ the East

Borrow their perfumes; whose eye

Gilds the morn, and clears the sky;

Whose disheveled tresses shed

Pearls upon the violet bed.

—THOMAS CAREW.

A wealth of clover clothes the place

Where, clad in buff-lined coats of blue,

Our countrymen o’erthrew

Their alien foe; and violets efface

All signs of combat.

—D. CHAUNCEY BREWER.

Down through the sunshine

Wings flutter and fly;—

Quick, little violet,

Open your eye!

—LUCY LARCOM.

Where violets hide,

Where star-flowers strew the rivulet’s side,

And blue-birds, in the misty spring,

Of cloudless skies and summer sing.

—WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Here the first violets

Perhaps will bud unseen,

And a dove, maybe,

Return to nestle here.