The brown buds thicken on the trees,

Unbound, the free streams sing,

As March leads forth, across the leas,

The wild and windy spring.

Where in the fields the melted snow

Leaves hollows warm and wet,

Ere many days will sweetly blow

The first blue violet.

—ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

Along the wood-paths, warm and wet,

Springs up the frail wood-violet.

—JAMES BENJAMIN KENYON.

The wild

Winds clash and clang, and broken boughs are piled

At feet of writhing trees. The violets raise

Their heads without affright, without amaze,

And sleep through all the din, as sleeps a child.

—HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

Violet is for faithfulness,

Which in me shall abide.

—ANONYMOUS.

Such sweet prophetic gladness as we feel

When first we find beneath the bare spring hills

So lately circled by the whirling snows,

The crocus peeping from the withered leaves;

When first we see the lingering day of flowers

Dawning in violets blue.

—GRACE GREENWOOD.

The violet varies from the lily as far

As oak from elm.

—ALFRED TENNYSON.

Some wear the lily’s stainless white

And some the rose of passion,

And some the violet’s heavenly blue,

But each in its own fashion.

—HENRY VAN DYKE.

Beauty clear and fair

Where the air

Rather like a perfume dwells;

Where the violet and the rose

Their blue veins and blush disclose

And come to honor nothing else.

—SAMUEL FLETCHER.

No tree unfolds its timid bud,

Chill pours the hillside’s chilling flood,

The tuneless forest all is dumb—

Whence then, fair violet, didst thou come?

—GOODRICH.

All flowers died when Eve left Paradise,

And all the world was flowerless for a while,

Until a little child was laid in earth;

Then from its grave grew violets for its eyes,

And from its lips rose-petals for its smile.

—MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN.

Sweet and sad, like a white dove’s note,

Strange voices wakened my soul to glee,

And soft scents strayed from the violet’s throat.

—BERNARD WELLER.

When the rain beats and March winds blow,

We should be glad if we could know

How, not so very far away,

There shineth a serener day

Where birds are blithe, and happy children pass

To gather violets among the grass.

—EMILY S. OAKEY.

Like a violet, like a lark,

Like the dawn that kills the dark,

Like a dew-drop, trembling, clinging,

Is the poet’s first sweet singing.

—RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

Earth folds dark blankets round the violet blue.

—AUSTIN DOBSON.

Her mild eyes were innocent of ill

As violets in sheltered nooks enshrined.

—CARRYL.

O violets, who never fret, nor say, “I won’t!” “I will!”

Who only live to do your best His wishes to fulfil,

Teach us your sweet obedience.

—CELIA THAXTER.

When beechen buds begin to swell,

And woods the bluebird’s warble know,

The yellow violet’s modest bell

Peeps from the last year’s leaves below.

—WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

I hold thy violets against my face

And deeply breathe the haunting purple scent

That fills my weary heart with sweet content

And lays upon my soul a chrismal grace;

The air around me for a little space

Is heavy with the fragrance they have lent,

And every passing wind that heavenward went

Has held thy blossoms in a close embrace.

—MYRTLE REED.

’Twas when the spring was coming, when the snow

Had melted, and fresh winds began to blow,

And girls were selling violets in the town.

—ROBERT BUCHANAN.

My house is small and low;

But with pictures such as these,—

Of the sunset, and the row

Of illuminated trees,

And the heifer as she drinks

From the field of meadowed ground,

With the violets and the pinks

For a border all around,—

Let me never, foolish, pray

For a vision wider spread,

But, contented, only say,

Give me, Lord, my daily bread.

—ALICE CARY.

How can our fancies help but go

Out from this realm of mist and rain,

Out from this realm of sleet and snow,

When the first southern violets blow?

—THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

But one short week ago the trees were bare,

And winds were keen, and violets pinched with frost;

Today the spring is in the air.

R

CHAPTER FOUR

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