The Violet Book Part 11

The mosses are wet Under chestnut and thorn With blossoms new-born Of dim violet.

--JOHN A. SYMONDS.

Give me only a bud from the trees Or a blade of gra.s.s in morning dew, Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue, I could look on it forever.

--SYDNEY DOBELL.

How could I forget To beg of thee, dear violet!

Some of thy modesty, That blossoms here as well, unseen, As if before the world thou'dst been, O give to strengthen me.

--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight.

--WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

An emerald robe o'er all the fields is drawn; Here are cowslips, there the violets appear; The rill's low laughter, children's joyous words, The ploughman's chorus, with the song of birds, In mingled cadences, are heard afar and near.

--JOSIAH RICE TAYLOR.

All the world is blooming, wherefore sigh?

Violets amid the gra.s.ses lie, And the wild bees with their girdles bright Climb up dazzling shafts of dazzling light; And on cowslips fall, in golden play, Shadows of the swallows on their way.

--MRS. WHITON-STONE.

One loves a baby face, with violets there, Violets instead of laurel in the hair, As these were all the little locks could bear.

--ROBERT BROWNING.

The sea is growing summer blue, But fairer, sweeter than the smiling sky, Or bashful violet with tender eye, Is she whose love for me will never die,-- I love you, darling, only you!

--ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

"Use! Use! Use!"

I cried impatiently;--"nothing but use!

As if G.o.d never made a violet, Or hung a harebell!"

--J. G. HOLLAND.

The pride of every grove I chose, The violet sweet and lily fair, The dappled pink and blushing rose, To deck my charming Chloe's hair.

--MATTHEW PRIOR.

'Twas a child In whose large eyes of blue there shone, indeed, Something to waken wonder. Never sky In noontide depth, or softly breaking dawn-- Never the dew in new-born violet's cup, Lay so entranced in purity.

--NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Violets, faint with love's perfume, Lie hid in tall green gra.s.ses.

--MARY E. BLAKE.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The violet, she is faint with heat-- The lily is all forlorn; My love, arise, with thy dewy eyes, Arise, and be their morn!

--ALICE CARY.

Grow greener, gra.s.s, where the river flows-- Her feet have pressed you; Blow fresher, violet! lily! rose!

Her eyes have blessed you.

--CHARLES MACKAY.

Violets make the airs that pa.s.s Telltales of their fragrant slope.

--BAYARD TAYLOR.

Sich a rainy season A-comin' by-an'-by; But Sun will play de hide-an'-seek Yander in the sky.

Lily'll look so lonesome-- Violet hide his eye; But de skies will do yo' weepin', So, honey, don't you cry!

W'en der rain is over, Violet dress in blue; Red rose say: "I sweet terday-- An' here's a kiss fer you!"

--FRANK L. STANTON.

Shadows, like the violets tangled, Like the soft light, softly mingled.

--ALICE CARY.

When violets pranked the turf with blue, And morning filled their cups with dew.

--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Came one by one the seasons, meetly drest.

First Spring--upon whose head a wreath was set Of wind-flowers and the yellow violet-- Advanced. Then Summer led his loveliest Of months, one ever to the minstrel dear (Her sweet eyes dewy wet), June, and her sisters, whose brown hands entwine The brier-rose and the bee-haunted columbine.

--EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

Oh, not more sweet the tears Of the dewy eve on the violet shed, Than the dews of age on the h.o.a.ry head When it enters the eve of years.