And now for a poem that speaks of winter and of one of my favorite little wildflowers. Do flowers take your mind to beautiful places like the gift of a few violets did for the author of this poem?
Winter Violets
by Edith Nesbit, 1858 - 1924
Author of "The Railway Children"
Death-white azaleas watched beside my bed,
And tried to tell me tales of Southern lands;
But they in hothouse air were born and bred,
And they were gathered by a stranger's hands:
They were not sweet, they never had been free,
And all their pallid beauty had no voice for me.
And all I longed for was one common flower
Fed by soft mists and rainy English air,
A flower that knew the woods, the leafless bower,
The wet, green moss, the hedges sharp and bare—
A flower that spoke my language, and could tell
Of all the woods and ways my heart remembers well.
Then came your violets—and at once I heard
The sparrows chatter on the dripping eaves,
The full stream's babbling inarticulate word,
The plash of rain on big wet ivy-leaves;
I saw the woods where thick the dead leaves lie,
And smelt the fresh earth's scent—the scent of memory.
The unleafed trees—the lichens green and gray,
The wide sad-coloured meadows, and the brown
Fields that sleep now, and dream of harvest day,
Hiding their seeds like hopes in hearts pent down—
A thousand dreams, a thousand memories
Your violets' voices breathed in unheard melodies—
Unheard by all but me. I heard, I blessed
The little English, English-speaking things
For their sweet selves that laid my wish to rest,
For their sweet help that lent my dreaming wings;
And, most of all, for all the thoughts of you
Which make them smell more sweet than other violets do.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Winter Violets
Arranged at 10:05 AM
Varieties: poetry, wildflowers
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4 bouquets of wildflowers (Comment here):
Elizabeth Joy,
I love violets too. I let them grow in my lawn, much to the horror of a few friends who consider them invasive. True, violets DO try to invade my gardens...but I dig them out of the beds, allowing them to spread as they will in the "lawn" where in late April or early May they are a spectacular sight.
I'd love to have a lawn full of violets! They make it a much more special place. Don't you just love to walk through your lawn when the violets bloom.
Violets are so sweet and pretty. Do you get the variegated ones? I know they get invasive, but they're also pretty controllable. :-)
I must have missed this literary tribute. Violets are wonderful flowers. We may have more violets in our lawn than danadelions. I think that is a good thing. They ahve such a sweet delicate fragrance.
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