To a Pansy-Violet

O pansy-violet,

With early April wet,

How frail and pure you look

Lost in this glow-worm nook

Of heaven-holding hills:

Down which the hurrying rills

Fling scrolls of melodies:

O'er which the birds and bees

Weave gossamers of song,

Invisible, but strong:

Sweet music webs they spin

To snare the spirit in.

O pansy-violet,

Unto your face I set

My lips, and — do you speak?

Or is it but some freak

Of fancy, love imparts

Through you unto the heart's

Desire? whispering low

A secret none may know,

But such as sit and dream

By forest-side and stream.

O pansy-violet,

O darling floweret,

Hued like the timid gem

That stars the diadem

Of Fay or Sylvan Sprite,

Who, in the woods, all night

Is busy with the blooms,

Young leaves and wild perfumes,

Through you I seem t’ have seen

All that such dreams may mean.

O pansy-violet,

Long, long ago we met —

‘ T was in a Fairy-tale:

Two children in a vale

Sat underneath glad stars,

Far from the world of wars;

Each loved the other well:

Her eyes were like the spell

Of dusk and dawning skies —

The purple dark that dyes

The midnight: his were blue

As heaven the day shines through.

O pansy-violet,

What is this vague regret,

This yearning, so like tears,

That touches through the years

Long past, when Myth and Fable

In all strange things were able

To beautify the Earth,

Things of immortal worth?—

This longing, that to me

Is like a memory

Lived long ago, of those

Fair children who, it knows,

Loved with no mortal love;

Whom smiling heaven above

Fostered, and when they died

Laid side by loving side.

O pansy-violet,

I dream, remembering yet

A wood-god-guarded tomb,

Out of whose moss a bloom

Sprang, with three petals wan

As are the eyes of dawn;

And two as darkly deep

As are the eyes of sleep.—

O flower,— that seems to hold

Some memory of old,

A hope, a happiness,

At which I can but guess,—

You are a sign to me

Of immortality:

Through you my spirit sees

The deathless purposes

Of death, that still evolves

The beauty it resolves;

The change that aye fulfills

Life's meaning as God wills.