Poems (Jones)/White Violets
Y sweetest friend I sought to please: I led her down a cool descent,Where trailed the boughs of ancient trees, Most quaintly bent.
WHITE VIOLETS.
Y sweetest friend I sought to please: I led her down a cool descent,Where trailed the boughs of ancient trees, Most quaintly bent.A glen we found all velvet-lined, Whence, peering fifty fathoms down,We saw the flashing rapids wind Through boulders brown.
A light cascade flung crystal globes O'er dense green moss and slender sedge;Then flitting on, in gauzy robes, Waltzed o'er the ledge.
Full softly shone, through leaves half furled And filmy, frail, spray-silvered nets,Those loveliest blossoms in the world,— White violets.
Oh pure, oh fragrant woodland things! My friend beheld them with delight; She lightly brushed their snow-flake wings With hand as white.
"Fair flowers; and is it sweet," she said, "To dwell in such a glade of dews?"Then lower drooped her faultless head, And seemed to muse.
"But human hearts," she murmured then, "With cause for constant sighs are weighed;Wherefore we yearn, though green the glen, For deeper shade.
"And, watching breezy water-jets In mossy woods, we straightway craveBy their attendant violets, A quiet grave."
"Kind Claire," I sighed, "the thought is thine; Still should I pray for lengthened life,If but that restless hand were mine— Its queen—my wife!
"Yet softer sleep could never be, When this my pilgrimage must end,Than under flowers beloved of thee, My sweetest friend."
She raised a rapt, transfigured face: "Blest with thy love," the maiden said,"No more shall Claire crave resting-place Among the dead!"
Soft sang the wind through ancient bowers! Light swayed the gauzy water-jets!Loving and loved!—Oh rarest flowers,— White violets!