The Violet Book Part 8

Come, pretty violet, Winter's away: Come, for without you May isn't May.

Now all is beautiful Under the sky.

May's here--and violets!

Winter, good-bye!

--LUCY LARCOM.

Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace, Throws out the snow-drop and the crocus first, The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue.

--JAMES THOMSON.

While May bedecks the naked trees With ta.s.sels and embroideries, And many blue-eyed violets beam Along the edges of the stream.

--HENRY VAN d.y.k.e.

The country ever has a lagging spring, Waiting for May to call its violets forth, And June its roses.

--WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

And in the meadows soft, on either hand, Blossomed white parsley and the violet.

--HOMER.

Welcome, maids of honor, You do bring In the Spring, And wait upon her.

She has virgins many Fresh and fair, Yet you are More sweet than any.

Ye are the maiden posies And so graced To be placed 'Fore damask roses.

--ROBERT HERRICK.

Tute le barche parte via sta note, E quela del mio ben doman de note; Tute le barche cargara de tole, E quela del mio ben de rose e viole.

--VENETIAN SONG.

CHAPTER SIX

Better to smell the violet cool, Than sip the glowing wine.

--GEORGE MACDONALD.

CHAPTER SIX

Wooed by the June day's fervent breath, Violets opened their violet eyes.

--LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

The wind, that poet of the elements, Tonight comes whistling down our tropic lanes, And wakes the slumbrous hours with sweet refrains.

Before the pilgrim minstrel violets place The purple censers of their fervent youth.

--MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND.

Now in snowdrops pure and pale Breaks the sere gra.s.s; the violet rends her veil.

--HENRY G. HEWLETT.

The violet's charms I prize, indeed, So modest 'tis, and fair.

--JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.

Seek the bank where flowering elders crowd, Where scattered wild the lily of the vale Its balmy essence breathes; where cowslips hang The dewy head, where purple violets lurk With all the lowly children of the shade.

--JAMES THOMSON.

So then the world's repeating its old story?

Once more, thank G.o.d, its fairest page we turn!

The violets and mayflowers, like the glory Of gold and color in old missals, burn With fadeless s.h.i.+mmering; These are its headings and vignettes. The heart Beats quicker when the Book of Life apart Falls at the page of Spring!

--JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.

Currents of fragrance, from the orange-tree, And sward of violets, breathing to and fro, Mingle, and wandering out upon the sea, Refresh the idle boatman where they blow.

--WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Close by the roots of moss-grown stumps, The sweetest and the first to blow, The blue-eyed violets, in clumps, Kiss one another as they grow.

--ANONYMOUS.

The purple heath and golden broom On moory mountains catch the gale, O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume, The violet in the vale.

--JAMES MONTGOMERY.

She who sung so gently to the lute Her dream of home, steals timidly away, Shrinking as violets do in summer's ray.

--THOMAS MOORE.

Lead me where amid the tranquil vale The broken streamlet flows in silver light; And I will linger when the gale O'er the bank of violets sighs, Listening to hear its softened sounds arise.

--ROBERT SOUTHEY.

In lower pools that see All their marges clothed all around With the innumerable lily; Whence the golden-girdled bee Flits through flowering rush to fret White or duskier violet.

--ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.