VIOLETS OF SPRING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue V, 4 August 1894, Page 104

VIOLETS OF SPRING.

What is most like the beauty of their face ? Or where on Nature's palette lies the hue Can dominate their airy, tender grace T Is it the tint of soft and misty blue That coats the ruddy ripeness of the plum Ere yet the touch of spoiling hand has come ?

’Tis not the glow of summer skies at noon. When white winged clouds make azure deeper still, Nor when at midnight the full orbed moon Sends o’er the tide her strange, magnetic thiill. And the far gleam of heaven’s burnished floor To glowing sapphire deepens more and more.

But they have caught among tbeir perfumed sheaves Th’ ethereal tint the purpling evening sends O'er moor and mountain, flood, and folding leaves. Ere slow, through paling skies the night descends ; When golden clouds beyond the distant hill Stretch westward, and the earth grows darkly still.

Tbeir odour fills the winding woodland way, And floats in silence o’er the meadow sweet, Like matin incense at the break of day, When all earth kneels at her Creator’s feet; This tender blossom, too, its guileless prayer Sends mounting upward on the morning air.

And like the sound of witching music past, Or wind that murmurs in the summer trees, Or echo, where some careless stone is cast— It fills the heart with thrilling memories. Old passions stir beneath the vague regrets That breathe from clustering lips of violets.

Mrs S. H. Coale.