The Violet Book Part 17

For mine are as cold and as black as jet, And I want your heavenly blue eyes!

Modest violet, maiden violet, Pray, can I borrow your blue eyes?

--ALICE CARY.

Flowers were the couch, Pansies and violets, and asphodels, And hyacinths, earth's freshest, softest lap.

--JOHN MILTON.

Flowers, of such as keep Their fragrant tissues and their heavenly hues Fresh-bathed forever in eternal dews-- The violet with her low-drooped eye, For learned modesty.

--SIDNEY LANIER.

Before the urchin well could go, She stole the whiteness of the snow; And more--the whiteness to adorn, She stole the blushes of the morn: Stole all the sweets that ether sheds On primrose buds or violet beds.

If lovers, Cupid, are thy care, Exert thy vengeance on this fair; To trial bring her stolen charms, And let her prison be my arms.

--CHARLES WYNDHAM.

Thine old-world eyes--each one a violet-- Big as the baby rose that is thy mouth-- Sets me a-dreaming. Have our eyes not met In childhood--in a garden of the South?

--HENRY A. BEERS.

May his soft foot, where it treads, Gardens thence produce, and meads, And those meddowes full be set With the rose and violet.

--ROBERT HERRICK.

I remember, I remember, The roses, red and white, The violets and the lily-cups-- Those flowers made of light.

--THOMAS HOOD.

The light drop of dew That glows in the violet's eye, In the splendor of morn, to the fugitive view, May rival a star in the sky.

--JAMES MONTGOMERY.

I saw thee weep--the big bright tear Came o'er that eye of blue: And then methought it did appear A violet dropping dew.

--LORD BYRON.

Oh Stream of Life! the violet springs But once beside thy bed; But one brief summer, on thy path, The dews of heaven are shed.

--WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Whate'er the baffling power Sent anger and earthquake, and a thousand ills-- It made the violet flower, And the wide world with breathless beauty thrills.

--RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The morning star of all the flowers The virgin, virgin violet.

--LORD BYRON.

CHAPTER TWELVE

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 suns.h.i.+ne 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.