Where burning tapers hold
White suppliant hands from arms of gold
Around the Host; there no one sets
Sweet violets.

Fair roses droop and die
In halls of dance and minstrelsy;
But who within those walls has met
The violet?

Where faintly smiles the sun
Through chequered skies on beech groves dun,
There hides in vales sequestered yet
The violet.

Where I shall lie asleep,
Some friend, perhaps, a tear will weep,
And if our love knew no regrets,
Strew violets.