The Wild Violet

by Hannah Flagg Gould

Artist Dick Twinney

Violet, violet, sparkling with dew,

Down in the meadow-land wild where you grew,

How did you come by the beautiful blue

With which your soft petals unfold?

And how do you hold up your tender, young head

When rude, sweeping winds rush along o'er your bed,

And dark, gloomy clouds ranging over you shed

Their waters so heavy and cold?

No one has nursed you, or watched you an hour,

Or found you a place in the garden or bower;

And they cannot yield me so lovely a flower,

As here I have found at my feet!

Speak, my sweet violet! answer and tell

How you have grown up and flourished so well,

And look so contented where lowly you dwell,

And we thus by accident meet!

'The same careful hand,' the Violet said,

'That holds up the firmament, holds up my head!

And He, who with azure the skies overspread,

Has painted the violet blue.

He sprinkles the stars out above me by night,

And sends down the sunbeams at morning with light

To make my new coronet sparkling and bright,

When formed of a drop of his dew!

'I've nought to fear from the black, heavy cloud,

Or the breath of the tempest that comes strong and loud!

Where, born in the lowland, and far from the crowd,

I know, and I live but for ONE.

He soon forms a mantle about me to cast,

Of long, silken grass, till the rain and the blast.

And all that seemed threatening have harmlessly passed,

As the clouds scud before the warm sun.