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Violet
BESIDE the dusty road of life,
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Deflower'd with toil and foul with strife,
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Lie hid within a charm of dew
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Pure harbours made for me and you.
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In such a shadowy nook is set
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Rest's purple-winged violet;
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It nods upon the fitful breeze
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Born in the fount's interstices;--
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That fount of joy for travellers made,
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Ensconc'd within a dappled shade,
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Where still its wings our violet lifts
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Beneath the pulsing air that shifts;--
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The little fount that bubbles there
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Under a veil of maiden-hair,
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And coils through many a liquid fold
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Its crystal waters dusk and cold.
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So small the fount, a hidden thing,--
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So weak the violet's throbbing wing,--
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The haughty world in dust rides by,
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Without a thought, without a sigh.
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Loud, in a riot of speed and glare,
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About their noisy work men fare;
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With shriek of engine, yell of horn,
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They glorify a world new-born.
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We love the old, the timid ways,
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The loose bough shutting out the blaze,
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The murmur of an ancient rhyme,
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Heard faintly in the ear of Time.
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And spirits, here and there, who still
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Prefer the mill-stream to the mill,
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To riot, quiet, and to speed
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The dance of rooted water-weed.
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Across a rood or two of grass,
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Unseen, into our realm will pass,
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Will lean above the whispering spring,
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And hear the hidden runnel sing.
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And then the crimson cheek will choose
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The rainbow of the pulsing dews;
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Then silence calm the 'wilder'd brain,
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And life grow sanctified again.
