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To a Pansy-Violet
By Madison Julius Cawein
Found Solitary Among the Hills.
I.
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.
II.
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.
III.
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.
IV.
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.
V.
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.
VI.
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.
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