NATURE AND THE POETS. 99 



found north of Pennsylvania. I have found it in a 

 single locality in the District of Columbia, and the 

 day is memorable upon which I first saw its cluster 

 of pink flowers, with their recurved petals cleaving 

 the air. I do not know that it has ever been men- 

 tioned in poetry. 



Another flower which I suspect our poets see 

 largely through the medium of English literature 

 and invest with borrowed charms, is the violet. The 

 violet is a much more winsome and poetic flower in 

 England than it is in this country, for the reason 

 that it comes very early and is sweet-scented ; our 

 common violet is not among the earliest flowers, and 

 it is odorless. It affects sunny slopes, like the English 

 flower ; yet Shakespeare never could have made the 

 allusion to it which he makes to his own species in 

 these lines : 



" That strain again ! it had a dying fall : 

 Oh ! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south 

 That breathes upon a bank of violets. 

 Stealing and giving odor," 



9r lauded it as 



" Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 

 Or Cytherea's breath." 



Our best known sweet-scented violet is a small, 

 white, lilac-veined species (not yellow, as Bryant has 

 it in his poem), that is common in wet out-of-the-way 

 places. Our common blue violet the only species 

 that is found abundantly everywhere in the North 

 Slooms in May, and makes bright many a grass} 



