120 'tHK [''msT VIOLLT. 



imager}', the solemn cloisters, the rusted armour, the satyrs partly 

 covered with the green moss — his impressive portrait above the wide 

 }irei)ta;ee, — had all risen before me as distinctly as when I first saw them. 



That simple violet brought the velvet valley of Sneinton before my 

 mind's eve, — the rocky hermitage, the flowery banks, on which I loved to 

 sit and angle in the sunrise of morning, or the gray twilight of eve. The 

 finnv-tiibe had but few charms for me, unless it was to see them leap up 

 and scatter the loosened silver spray of the river, like fairy-stars in the 

 sunshine, then glide away beneath the clear water. The dreaming trees, the 

 distant hills basking in their variegated beauty, the rustling of slender 

 flags, the rising and falling of the water-lilies, the breeze sweeping 

 across the long grass, the tall willows bending to their own shadows in 

 the river, the slow clouds mirrored below — all these were sights and 

 soun.U that accorded well with my varying moods. Then those dead 

 leave- sa closely surrounding an object of beauty ! Oh, how like past 

 pleasures thev seemed, — the dark night closing n}>on a sunny day, the 

 grave surmounting a flowej-bed, the bier placed in a ball room, the 

 inneral btll knelling homeward the wedding party, the slow muffled 

 footsteps of death stealing noiselessly behind us ! 



What changes had taken place since I last saw a violet. Could I forget 

 tlie dark room, the narrow window on which the sunbeams beat not, 

 lest they should become prisoners. Hope had whispered me away from 

 my green hills ; ambition had allured me from my quiet woods ; and 

 thev had all forsaken me — even Patience grew wearied with long watching, 

 and bent over the pale paper her paler cheek. But memory went not 

 away : she still recognised the blue sky and the bright sunshine, and 

 t-ighed when shethought on such mornings. How fair the primroses grew 

 in Clifton Grove ; what a gushing of song there was then in the green 

 woods ; how the sunshine slept upon the river ; how the happy breezes 

 were ladened with the purfume of violets. Then rose the blossoming 

 hawthorn, the hillside white with daisies, the golden glow of king-cups, 

 the gaudy beds of ci'ocusses ; — all these still existed. And even their 

 light hearts and merry voices, were ringing through the haunts of the 

 dove — Dryads fair as those which peopled the forests of poetry. Per- 

 chance they were singing the songs which I had woven in my happier 

 days. 



And could they think of me ^ wish me seated on the well-known bark, 

 beneath the old oak. There was pleasure in the thought — the dingy couch, 

 the torn dictionary, the neglected candle, that had burnt down un- 

 watched in the moments of wandering thought ; the expiring fire, with 

 its dying embers ; the low chilly feeling that follows a sleepless night ; 

 the pile of paper, showing confusedly its rows of scribbled lines ; voices 

 in the streets ; the sun struggling through a murky atmosphere ; — form 

 gloomy contrasts to the little window in which the woodbine peeped. 

 When free from care and refreshed with slumber, the lark awoke us 

 ■with its song, when the woods emerged from their misty canopy, and 

 the earlv breeze brushed the gentle dew from the leaves ; when con- 

 tentment smoothed our pillow, and the white wings of peace wafted us 

 into slumber ; when we heard not a mournful sound in the brook, and 

 torvow came not at the sight of the first violet. 



