THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
93 
“ There are no flowers grow in the vale, 
Kissed by the dew, wooed by the gale, 
None by the dew of the twilight wet, 
So sweet as the deep-blue violet,” 
London. 
Fairest and sweetest of flowers ! What more praise 
can be given r If some invisible power should sud¬ 
denly sweep away from the earth every tuft of violets, 
could any flower, of garden, field, or copse, replace 
them ? Ah, no ! the very soul of Spring would have 
passed away with them. 
There is no fragrance like that of the violet. A 
peculiar freshness and purity make it stand alone 
among all the odors of the floral kingdom. Shakspeare 
felt it when he wrote of 
“violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes 
Or Cytlierea’s breath.” 
The Duke in Twelfth Night commands,— 
“ That strain again; it had a dying fall; 
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet south, 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odor.” 
And at Ophelia’s grave Laertes cries, —■ 
“ Lay her i’ the earth, 
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring.” 
Barry Cornwall says, — 
“ Dost see yon bank 
The sun is kissing.'' Near — go near! for there 
(’Neath those broad leaves, amidst yon straggling grasses) 
Immaculate odors from the violet 
Spring up forever ! Like sweet thoughts that come 
