26 o 
Violet. 
“ I love all things the seasons bring, 
All buds that open, birds that sing, 
All hues from white to jet; 
All the sweet words that Summer sends 
When she recalls her flowery friends. 
But chief—the violet. 
“ I love—how much I love!—the rose, 
On whose soft lips the south wind blows 
In pretty, amorous threat; 
The lily paler than the moon, 
The odorous, wondrous world of June, 
Yet more—the violet! 
“ She comes, the first, the fairest thing 
That Heaven upon the earth doth fling, 
Ere Winter’s star has set: 
She dwells behind her leafy screen, 
And gives, as angels give, unseen, 
So, love—the violet. 
“What modest thoughts the violet teaches, 
What gracious boons the violet preaches, 
Bright maiden, ne’er forget! 
But learn, and love, and so depart, 
And sing thou, with thy wiser heart, 
‘ Long live the violet!’ ” 
Quaint old Paracelsus, who has been so much misunderstood, 
not only by his own, but by many successive generations of 
scoffers, once propounded a division of plants according to 
their particular odours, and presuming the possibility of such 
an arrangement, few, if any, flowers could claim a higher place 
than the modest violet. 
It has been justly remarked that if we miss in our native 
plants something of the gorgeousness of more tropical flowers, 
we are more than compensated by the variety and delicacy of 
their perfume : the scented airs floating over a fragrant “ bank 
of violets, stealing and giving odour,” would amply repay the 
loss of all the gaudy floral treasures of the vaunted tropics. 
At the floral games instituted at Toulouse, in 1323, by a 
lady named Clemence Isaure, whilst the gallant troubadours 
were in the heyday of their glory, a golden violet—“the 
glorious flower which bore the prize away ”—was the recom- 
pence annually awarded to the author of the best poem. The 
fair founder of the renowned pastimes is represented as sending, 
during a weary imprisonment, her chosen flower, the violet, to 
her knight, that he might wear the emblem of her constancy. 
