’Twas when the spring was coming, when the snow Had melted, and fresh winds began to blow, And girls were selling violets in the town. --ROBERT BUCHANAN.
My house is small and low; But with pictures such as these,-- Of the sunset, and the row Of illuminated trees, And the heifer as she drinks From the field of meadowed ground, With the violets and the pinks For a border all around,-- Let me never, foolish, pray For a vision wider spread, But, contented, only say, Give me, Lord, my daily bread. --ALICE CARY.
How can our fancies help but go Out from this realm of mist and rain, Out from this realm of sleet and snow, When the first southern violets blow? --THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
But one short week ago the trees were bare, And winds were keen, and violets pinched with frost; Today the spring is in the air. --JOHN TODHUNTER.
Are there violets in the sod, Crocuses beneath the clod? When will Boreas give us peace? Or has Winter signed a lease For another month of frost, Leaving Spring to pay the cost? For it seems he still is king, Though ’tis spring. --CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH.
See, the violets call from out the grasses, Look, the purple answers from the ground; Azure melts and to that warbler passes, Sudden, a sky-fleck on the fences found! --CHARLES DE KAY.
I know that thou art the word of my God, dear violet. --SIDNEY LANIER.
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, Spring’s earliest nurselings spread their glowing leaves, Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, White, azure, golden,--drift, or sky, or sun;-- The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast The frozen trophy torn from winter’s crest; The violet, gazing on the arch of blue Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould, Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. --OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
The meadow your walks have left so sweet That wherever a March wind sighs, He sets the jewel-print of your feet In violets blue as your eyes. --ALFRED TENNYSON.
The warring hosts of Winter and of Spring Are hurtling o’er the plains. All night I heard their battle clarions ring And jar the window-panes.
The saddened robins flit through leafless trees, And chirp with tuneless voice, And wait the conquering sun, the unbinding breeze; They cannot yet rejoice.