APRIL.

A violet by a mossy stone,

Half hidden from the eye,

Fair as a star, when only one,

Is shining in the sky. Wordsworth

I have found violets. April hath come on,

And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain

Falls in the beaded drops of summer time.

You may hear birds at morning, and at eve

The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,

Cooing upon the eaves, and drawing in

His beautiful bright neck, and from the hills,

A murmur like the hoarseness of the sea

Tells the release of waters, and the earth

Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves

Are lifted by the grass — and so I know

That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard

The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring.

Smell of my violets! I found them where

The liquid South stole o'er them, on a bank

That lean'd to running water. There's to me

A daintiness about these early flowers

That touches me like poetry. They blow

With such a simple loveliness among

The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out

Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts

Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.

I love to go in the capricious days

Of April and hunt violets; when the rain

Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod

So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.

It may be deem'd unmanly, but the wise

Read nature like the manuscript of heaven

And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!

Ye spirits of habitual unrest,

And read it when the “fever of the world”

Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life

Hath yet one spring unpoison'd, it will be

Like a beguiling music to its flow,

And you will no more wonder that I love

To hunt for violets in the April time.