The Violet Book Part 1

The Violet Book.

by Willis Boyd Allen.

PREFACE

Many of the selections in this volume are waifs and strays, found in obscure periodicals and newspapers, or in long-forgotten books on the dusty shelves of libraries. Some of them have been gathered from copyrighted works, and for the use of these the compiler owes and renders his best thanks.

Special acknowledgments are due to the following publishers and copyright holders:

The Houghton, Mifflin Company, for selections from the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, Edith M. Thomas, Celia Thaxter, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Richard Watson Gilder, John Hay, Lucy Larcom, George E.

Woodbury, Alice and Phbe Cary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Mrs. A. D. T.

Whitney, and Edmund Clarence Stedman; Messrs. Little, Brown and Company, for lines by Louise Chandler Moulton and Helen Hunt Jackson; Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, for selections from the works of Dora Read Goodale and Myrtle Reed; Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, for extracts from the writings of Henry Van d.y.k.e, Mary Mapes Dodge, Oliver Herford, and Frances Hodgson Burnett; and Messrs. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, for permission to quote from Clinton Scollard's work.

A STUDY IN VIOLET

Next to the rose, whose divine right to monarchy cannot be questioned, the violet is the poet's flower. No other is mentioned so frequently, or with such affection.

It is impossible to say when this familiar flower first blossomed in literature. The "Odyssey" would not be complete without it, nor would the "Eclogues" of the Roman singer, Virgil. Ovid was fond of horticulture, and the violet was not forgotten when the bard was inditing his smooth-flowing hexameters. Pliny and Cicero, too, were violet-lovers. In the Bible there is no mention of the flower; but in Chrysostom's "First Homily" occurs perhaps the first appearance of our little friend in Christian literature.

Chaucer's affection for "floures" is well known. Of the many Shakspearean quotations in this field, probably the most familiar comprises the exquisite lines:

"Violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath."

Pa.s.sing to the more recent literary period, the individual taste of the poet becomes noticeable. Strange to relate, Wordsworth could have cared little for the shy blossom. Although he does say,

"Long as there are violets They will have their place in story,"

he leaves it to others to tell the story,--referring to the violet only three or four times in all his voluminous writings. His counterpart in this respect, among American poets, is Longfellow, in whose musical numbers, singularly enough, the violet has almost no place at all. Nor was the flower a favorite with Tennyson, though each of his rare references to it is a gem; as this,--

"The meadow your walks have left so sweet That wherever a March wind sighs, He sets the jewel-prints of his feet In violets blue as your eyes."

American writers have, on the whole, given the violet a more prominent place than have their English brethren of the lyre. Bryant's pages, for instance, are fragrant with its perfume, and he has, in special, immortalized the yellow variety in more than one finely turned stanza.

If most of the world's great bards have been reluctant to give Lady Violet her due, not so the numerous rank and file of "minor poets."

The verse of Alice Cary, Lucy Larcom, Grace Greenwood, Elizabeth Akers, Adelaide Proctor and dozens of others is a garden of wild-flowers, with the violet leading the dance. Some of the prettiest conceits occur in the writings of authors so obscure that their names are unfamiliar to most readers. For instance, one must look far for a volume of poetry bearing the name of Ethel M. Kelley; yet these fine lines are attributed to her:

"In her hair the sunbeams nest, And in her eyes the violets blow, While in the summer of her breast The songbird thoughts flit to and fro."

The compiler of this book has spent many pleasant hours in culling his violets from the immense field of English and American poetry.

Another volume of equal size could readily be made up from extracts containing references to the flower, to say nothing of German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Scandinavian poetry, which has not been considered in his quest.

WILLIS BOYD ALLEN

CHAPTER ONE

The silent, soft and humble heart In the violet's hidden sweetness breathes.

--JAMES G. PERCIVAL.

CHAPTER ONE

The air is white with snow-flakes clinging; Between the gusts that come and go Methinks I hear the woodlark singing.

Or can it be the breeze is bringing The breath of violets?--Ah, no!

The air is white with snow-flakes clinging.

It is my lady's voice that's stringing Its beads of gold to song; and so Methinks I hear the woodlark singing.

The violets I see upspringing Are in my lady's eyes, I trow; The air is white with snow-flakes clinging.

-- JOHN PAYNE.

A chaplet on her head she wore (Heigho, the chaplet!); Of sweet violets therein was store-- She's sweeter than the violet.

--EDMUND SPENSER.

Tell me, this sweet morn, Tell me all you know,-- Tell me, was I born?

Tell me, did I grow?

Fell I from the blue Like a drop of rain, Then, as violets do, Blossomed up again?

--ROBERT BUCHANAN.

Misty grew the violets of her eyes.

--HELEN B. BOSTWICK.

The violet loves the sunny bank, The cowslip loves the lea, The scarlet creeper loves the elm; But I love--thee.

--BAYARD TAYLOR.

Your name p.r.o.nounced brings to my heart A feeling like the violet's breath.

--COVENTRY PATMORE.

Out from the leaves of my "Lucille"