This morning I was in Church doing a bit of tidying up and restocking to the second hand book stall. Ann (who'd been doing a little shopping) met me, and as we walked through the churchyard on our way home, Ann spotted the above wild violets in flower on the South side of the Church. They are the first we've seen this year and are well ahead of their usual time of flowering. Is this a good sign of an early spring ? I do hope so.
Lovely little things, and so much more wholesome than the poetry they've inspired:-
ReplyDeleteThe Violet
Down in a green and shady bed,
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its colour bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there.
Yet thus it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused a sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade.
Then let me to the graveyard go
This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility.
Jane Taylor
Sweet Violets
You are brief and frail and blue-
Little sisters, I am, too.
You are Heaven's masterpieces-
Little loves, the likeness ceases.
Dorothy Parker
From Sing Song, a Nursery Rhyme Book(before 1873)
O wind, where have you been,
That you blow so sweet?
Among the violets
Which blossom at your feet.
The honeysuckle waits
For Summer and for heat
But violets in the chilly Spring
Make the turf so sweet.
Cristina Georgina Rosetti
An early spring would make me very happy...
ReplyDeleteI like the Dorothy Parker verse. I'd not come across that one before.
ReplyDeleteI should think you're about ready for spring, Lori.