Her hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light;—
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.
But not beneath a graven stone,
To plead for tears with alien eyes;
A slender cross of wood alone
Shall say, that here a maiden lies...
Under the violets, blue and sweet,
Where low the willow droops and weeps,
Where children tread with timid feet,
When twilight o’er the forest creeps,
She sleeps,—my little darling sleeps.
Breathe low and soft, O wind! breathe low
Where so much loveliness is laid!
Pour out thy heart in strains of woe,
O bird! that in...
There was a land where lived no violets.
A traveller at once demanded: “Why?”
The people told him:
“Once the violets of this place spoke thus:
‘Until some woman freely gives her lover
To another woman
We will fight in bloody scuffle.’”
Sadly the people added:
“There are no violets here.”
Welcome, maids of honor!
You doe bring
In the Spring,
And wait upon her.
She has virgins many,
Fresh and faire;
Yet you are
More sweet than any.
Y’ are the maiden Posies,
And, so grac’t,
To be plac’t
’Fore damask roses.
Yet though thus respected,
By and by...
