Poems (Allen)/An Autumn Violet

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

AN AUTUMN VIOLET.

HE wind shrieks in shrill discontent,
 The clouds frown their pitiless warning,
With frost-pearls the ground is besprent
 This dreary and sorrowful morning.
Yet here, dreading not the bleak day,
 Nor the cold sky so frigidly glooming,
Is a ghost of the long-buried May,—
 A violet, sweet and fresh-blooming!

Ah, the days may be sullen and sober,
 The nights may be stormy and cold;
 But, for him who has eyes to behold,
The violets bloom in October!

Poor foundling! thy welcome is cold,—
 Granted after a merciless fashion;
For the year has grown fretful and old,
 And knows neither love nor compassion.
Oh, of all the misfortunes which here
 Make life so oppressive and weary,
To be born at the wrong time of year
 Is surely most lonesome and dreary!

Ah, the morn may be solemn and sober,
 And sombre and cheerless the eve,
 But, for those who have souls to perceive,
The violets bloom in October!

Lift up thine unfearing blue eye,
 O brave but mistaken new-comer,
And tell, while the snow-flakes blow by,
 What wandering sprite of the summer,
Betrayed by some bright autumn day
 Whose treachery all should remember,
Has left thee, in fear and dismay,
 On the door-step of cruel November?

O, the days may be sullen and sober,
 The nights may be windy and cold,
 But, for him who has eyes to behold,
The violets bloom in October!