The Violet Book Part 19

Under the larch when the sun was set, He came with an April violet: Forty years--and I have it yet.

Out of life with its fond regret, What have love and memory yet?

Only an April violet.

--ANONYMOUS.

Good-bye to the red rose that is your mouth, The tender violets that are your sigh; The sweetness that you are--that is my South-- Ah, not too soon, Enchantress, do I fly!-- Tell me good-bye!

--RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

Through the deep drifts the south wind breathed its way Down to the earth's green face; the air grew warm, The snowdrops had regained their lovely charm; The world had melted round them in a day: My full heart longed for violets.

--CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER.

The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems colored by its skies.

--LORD BYRON.

When we were children we would say,-- "I like the coming of the spring, I like the violets of May, I like, why, almost everything That March and May and April bring."

But now we value less the rose, And care not when the birds take wing.

We like the winter and the snows.

--JAMES BERRY BENSEL.

So long as there's a sun that sets, Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are violets They will have a place in story.

--WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Go, azure myrtle blossom, Go, violets and jasmine fair, And star the darkness of her hair, Or faint against her bosom.

--GRACE GREENWOOD.

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet.

--JOHN MILTON.

G.o.d does not send us strange flowers every year.

When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places, The same dear things lift up the same fair faces-- The violet is here.

It all comes back: the odor, grace and hue; Each sweet relation of its life repeated: No blank is left, no looking-for is cheated; It is the thing we knew.

So after the death-winter it must be.

G.o.d will not put strange signs in the heavenly places: The old love will look out from the old faces.

Veilchen! I shall have thee!

--ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.