O Winter, thou art warm at heart;

Thine every pulse doth throb and glow,

And thou dost feel life’s joy and smart,

Beneath the blinding snow.

Thine is the scent of bursting bud,

Of April shower and violet;

Thou feelest spring in all thy blood

Yearn up like sweet regret.

—JAMES BENJAMIN KENYON.

Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.

What joy sufficient hath November felt,

What profit from the violets’ day of pain?

—HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

Pluck the others, but still remember

Their herald out of dim December—

The morning-star of all the flowers,

The pledge of daylight’s lengthened hours;

Nor, midst the roses, e’er forget

The virgin, virgin violet.

—LORD BYRON.

Violet, little violet,

Brave and true and sweet thou art.

May is in thy sunny heart,

Maiden violet.

Gentle as the summer day,

Wintry storms bring no dismay,

Winsome violet.

All the days to thee are spring,

Thine own sunshine dost thou bring,

Violet, faithful violet!

—ANONYMOUS.

Only in dreams thy love comes back,

And fills my soul with joy divine.

Only in dreams I feel thy heart

Once more beat close to mine.

Only in blissful dreams of spring,

And sunny banks of violet blue,

The past folds back its curtain dim

And memory shows thine image true.

—MELVILLE M. BIGELOW.

Winter is come again. There is no voice

Of waters with beguiling for your ear,

And the cool forest and the meadows green

Witch not your feet away; and in the dells

There are no violets.

—NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

Once more, dear friend, the violet bank we seek,

And tread with joy our old familiar ways.

—JESSIE CUNNINGHAM HOWDEN.

Cheek o’er cheek, and with red so tender

Rippling bright through the gypsy brown,

Just to see how a lady’s splendor

Shone the heads of the daffodils down.

Winds through the violets’ misty covering

Now kissed the white ones and now the blue,

Sang the redbreast over them hovering

All as the world were but just made new.

—ALICE CARY.

Daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes

Or Cytherea’s breath.

—WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

Could you not come when woods are green?

Could you not come when lambs are seen?

When the primrose laughs from its child-like sleep,

And the violets hide and the bluebells peep?

—ALFRED AUSTIN.

Thy face is like the violet’s

That to the red rose lingers close,

And he who looks at thee forgets

The honeyed sweetness of the rose.

—JOEL BENTON.

He gave her the wildwood roses

And violets for her wreath,

And a whisper at last of sweet response

Stole on her perfumed breath.

—FRANCES L. MACE.

Come not, O sweet days,

Out of yon cloudless blue,

Ghosts of so many dear remembered Mays,

With faces like dead lovers, who died true.

Come not, lest we go seek with eyes all wet,

Primrose and violet,

Forgetting that they lie

Deep in the mould till winter has gone by.

—DINAH MARIA MULOCH CRAIK.

Blighting and blowing—blighting and blowing—

And the stones of the rivulet silent lie,

And the winds in the fading woodlands cry,

And the birds in the clouds are going;

And the dandelion hides his gold,

And their little blue tents the violets fold,

And the air is gray with snowing:

So life keeps coming and going.

—ALICE CARY.

Dear chance it were in some rough wood-god’s lair

To sink o’erdrowsed, and dream that wild-flowers blew

Around my head and feet silently there,

Till spring’s glad choir adown the valley pealed

And violets trembled in the morning dew.

—EDWARD DOWDEN.

The sunbeams kiss askant the sombre hill,

The naked woodbine climbs the window-sill,

The breaths that noon exhales are faint and chill.

Tread lightly where the dainty violets blew,

Where to spring winds their soft eyes open flew;

Safely they sleep the churlish winter through.

Though all life’s portals are indiced with woe,

And frozen pearls are all the world can show,

Feel! Nature’s breath is warm beneath the snow!

—ANONYMOUS.

You’ll look at least on love’s remains,

A grave’s one violet?

Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.

What’s death? You’ll love me yet!

̵

INDEX

---