Jump to content

Poems (Hornblower)/On a late Violet

From Wikisource
4558420Poems — On a late VioletJane Elizabeth Roscoe Hornblower

ON A LATE VIOLET.
Poor purple lingerer of the fading year,
Whose leaves of withering blue
Their dying sweetness drew
From suns more genial, and from skies more clear;
How tenderly and cold
Thy blossoms now unfold,
Their buds engemmed with winter's first cold tear;
The wild autumnal storm
Which whistles o'er thy form,
Will in its ruthlessness exhale
Thy slight "perfume upon the gale;"
And thou still lower hang thine humble head.
Then come, and on the tomb
Of one whose short-lived bloom
Was like thine own, thy parting sweetness shed;
For she, like thee, when wintry storms appeared,
Her modest head upreared,
And in her gentleness defied the blast;
Like thee, she faded slowly, day by day.
Like thine, her early bloom exhaled away,
When summer suns and the bright hours were past.