How can the glintin sun shine bright?
How can the wimplin burnie glide?
Or flowers adorn the ingle side?

Or birdies deign

The woods, and streams, and vales to chide?
Eliza's gane!

J. W. H.

If she be gone, the world, in my esteem,
Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it
But dust and feathers.

John Crown.

Thus absence dies, and dying proves
No absence can subsist with loves

That do partake of fair perfection;
Since, in the darkest night, they may,
By love's quick motion, find a way
To see each other in reflection.

VIOLET....Modest Worth.

Suckling.

THE Violet has always been a favourite theme of admiration among visitors of Parnassus. Its quiet beauty and love of retired spots have ever made it the emblem of true worth that shrinks from parade. It is one of the first children of spring, and awakens pleasing emotions in the breast of the lover of the beautiful, as he strolls through the meadows in the season of joy. Ion, the Greek name of this flower, is traced by some etymologists to Ia, the daughter of Midas, who was be

trothed to Atys, and changed by Diana into a Violet, to hide her from Apollo.

A woman's love, deep in the heart,

Is like the Violet flower,

That lifts its modest head apart
In some sequestered bower.

The maid whose manners are retired,
Who, patient, waits to be admired,
Though overlooked, perhaps, a while
Her modest worth, her modest smile,—
Oh, she will find, or soon, or late,
A noble, fond, and faithful mate,
Who, when the spring of life is gone,
And all its blooming flowers are flown,
Will bless old Time, who left behind
The graces of a virtuous mind.

Pansies, Lilies, Kingcups, Daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,

Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are Violets,

They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine.

Eyes of some men travel far

For the finding of a star;

Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!

Anon.

Paulding.

I'm as great as they, I trow,

Since the day I found thee out,
Little flower!—I'll make a stir,
Like a great astronomer.
Modest, yet withal an elf,

Bold, and lavish of thyself,

Since we needs must first have met
I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet

'Twas a face I did not know:
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings in a day.

Ere a leaf is on the bush,

In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about its nest,

Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal;

Telling tales about the sun,

When there's little warmth or none.

Wordsworth.

Shakspeare regarded the Violet as the emblem of constancy, as the following occurs in one of his sonnets:—

Violet is for faithfulness,

Which in me shall abide;

Hoping, likewise, that from your heart

You will not let it slide.

Shakspeare.

The Violet in her greenwood bower,
Where birchen boughs with hazles mingle,
May boast herself the fairest flower,

In glen, or copse, or forest dingle.

Under the hedge all safe and warm,
Sheltered from boisterous wind and storm,
We Violets lie:

With each small eye

Closely shut while the cold goes by.

Scott.

You look at the bank, mid the biting frost,
And you sigh, and say that we're dead and lost;
But, Lady stay

For a sunny day,

And you'll find us again, alive and gay.
On mossy banks, under forest trees,

You'll find us crowding, in days like these;
Purple and blue,

And white ones too,

Peep at the sun, and wait for you.

By maids and matrons, by old and young,
By rich and poor, our praise is sung;
And the blind man sighs

When his sightless eyes

He turns to the spot where our perfumes rise.
There is not a garden, the country through,
Where they plant not Violets, white and blue;
By princely hall,

And cottage small—

For we're sought, and cherished, and culled by all.

Yet grand parterres and stiff trimmed beds
But ill become our modest heads;

We'd rather run,

In shadow and sun,

O'er the banks where our merry lives first begun. There, where the Birken bough's silvery shine Gleams over the hawthorn and frail woodbine, Moss, deep and green,

Lies thick, between

The plots where we Violet-flowers are seen.
And the small gay Celandine's stars of gold
Rise sparkling beside our purple's fold:—
Such a regal show

Is rare, I trow,

Save on the banks where Violets grow.

Louisa A. Twamley.

I know where bloom some Violets in a bed
Half hidden in the grass; and crowds go by
And see them not, unless some curious eye
Unto their hiding-place by chance is led.

I often pass that way, and look on them,
And love them more and more. I know not why
My heart doth love such humble things; but I

Esteem them more than robe or diadem Of haughty kings. A babe, or bird, or flower Hath o'er the soul a most despotic power. The tearful eye of infancy oppressed— A flower down-trodden by the foot of spite— Awaken sighs of sorrow in the breast, Or nerve the arm to vindicate their right. MacKellar.