Part 11 (1/2)

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 blus.h.i.+ng 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.