Famous Violets Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Violets poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous violets poems. These examples illustrate what a famous violets poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Under the Violets

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 HER hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light;--
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.

But not beneath a graven stone,
To plead for tears with alien eyes;
A slender cross of wood alone
Shall say, that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful...Read more of this...

Changing Time

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The cloud looked in at the window,
And said to the day, "Be dark!"
And the roguish rain tapped hard on the pane,
To stifle the song of the lark.
[Pg 73]The wind sprang up in the tree tops
And shrieked with a voice of death,
But the rough-voiced breeze, that shook the trees,
Was touched with a violet's breath.
...Read more of this...

On Violets Wafers Sent Me When I Was Ill

by Sidney Lanier
 Fine-tissued as her finger-tips, and white
As all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize,
As if before young Violet's dreaming eyes
Still blazed the two great Theban bucklers bright
That swayed the random of that furious fight
Where Palamon and Arcite made assize
For Emily; fresh, crisp as her replies,
That, not with sting, but pith, do oft invite
More trial of the tongue; simple,...Read more of this...

Sweet Violets

by Dorothy Parker
 You are brief and frail and blue-
Little sisters, I am, too.
You are Heaven's masterpieces-
Little loves, the likeness ceases....Read more of this...

To the Fringed Gentian

by William Cullen Bryant
 Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night. 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed, 
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late and com'st alone, 
When woods are bare and...Read more of this...

The Wood

by Charlotte Bronte
 BUT two miles more, and then we rest ! 
Well, there is still an hour of day, 
And long the brightness of the West 
Will light us on our devious way; 
Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­ 
So total is the solitude, 
We safely may delay. 

These massive roots afford a seat, 
Which seems for weary travellers made....Read more of this...

A Calendar of Sonnets: March

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 Month which the warring ancients strangely styled 
The month of war,--as if in their fierce ways 
Were any month of peace!--in thy rough days 
I find no war in Nature, though the wild 
Winds clash and clang, and broken boughs are piled 
As feet of writhing trees. The violets raise 
Their heads without affright, without amaze, 
And sleep through...Read more of this...

Violets

by D. H. Lawrence
Sister, tha knows while we was on the planks
  Aside o' th' grave, while th' coffin wor lyin' yet
On th' yaller clay, an' th' white flowers top of it
  Tryin' to keep off 'n him a bit o' th' wet,

An' parson makin' haste, an' a' the black
  Huddlin' close together a cause o' th' rain,
Did t' 'appen...Read more of this...

Warble for Lilac-Time

by Walt Whitman
 WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time, 
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake—and
 death’s the same as life’s, 
Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries; 
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;) 
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the...Read more of this...

To A Young Poet Who Killed Himself

by Joyce Kilmer
 When you had played with life a space
And made it drink and lust and sing,
You flung it back into God's face
And thought you did a noble thing.
"Lo, I have lived and loved," you said,
"And sung to fools too dull to hear me.
Now for a cool and grassy bed
With violets in blossom near me."
Well, rest is good for weary feet,
Although...Read more of this...

To Violets

by Robert Herrick
 Welcome, maids of honour,
You do bring
In the Spring;
And wait upon her.

She has virgins many,
Fresh and fair;
Yet you are
More sweet than any.

You're the maiden posies;
And so graced,
To be placed
'Fore damask roses.

--Yet, though thus respected,
By and by
Ye do lie,
Poor girls, neglected....Read more of this...

Spring and Winter i

by William Shakespeare
 WHEN daisies pied and violets blue, 
 And lady-smocks all silver-white, 
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 
 Do paint the meadows with delight, 
The cuckoo then, on every tree, 
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, 
 Cuckoo! 
Cuckoo, cuckoo!--O word of fear, 
Unpleasing to a married ear! 

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, 
 And merry larks are...Read more of this...

At dawn, when dews bedeck the tulip's face,

by Omar Khayyam
At dawn, when dews bedeck the tulip's face,
And violets their heavy heads abase,
I love to see the roses' folded buds,
With petals closed against the wind's disgrace....Read more of this...

There was a land where lived no violets

by Stephen Crane
 There was a land where lived no violets.
A traveller at once demanded : "Why?"
The people told him:
"Once the violets of this place spoke thus:
'Until some woman freely gives her lover
To another woman
We will fight in bloody scuffle.'"
Sadly the people added:
"There are no violets here."...Read more of this...

Perished

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 I called to the summer sun, 
“Come over the hills to-day! 
Unlock the rivers, and tell them to run, 
And kiss the snow-drifts and melt them away.”
And the sun came over – a tardy lover –
And unlocked the river, and told it to glide, 
And kissed the snow-drift till it fainted and died.

I called to the robin, “Come back!...Read more of this...

Canzone XX

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XX. Ben mi credea passar mio tempo omai. HE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT SEEING HER, BUT WOULD NOT DIE THAT HE MAY STILL LOVE HER.  As pass'd the years which I have left behind,To pass my future years I fondly thought,Amid old studies, with desires the same;But, from my lady since I...Read more of this...

My Little March Girl

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 Come to the pane, draw the curtain apart, 
There she is passing, the girl of my heart; 
See where she walks like a queen in the street, 
Weather-defying, calm, placid and sweet.
Tripping along with impetuous grace, 
Joy of her life beaming out of her face, 
Tresses all truant-like, curl upon curl, 
Wind-blown and rosy, my little March girl.

Hint of...Read more of this...

Weep no more

by John Gould Fletcher
 WEEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that 's gone:
Violets pluck'd, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully;
Fate's hid ends eyes cannot see.
Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe;...Read more of this...

Music When Soft Voices Die

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
MUSIC when soft voices die  
Vibrates in the memory; 
Odours when sweet violets sicken  
Live within the sense they quicken; 

Rose leaves when the rose is dead 5 
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed: 
And so thy thoughts when thou art gone  
Love itself shall slumber on. ...Read more of this...

Unto one who lies at rest

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 Unto one who lies at rest 
'Neath the sunset, in the West, 
Clover-blossoms on her breast. 

Lover of each gracious thing 
Which makes glad the summer-tide, 
From the daisies clustering 
And the violets purple-eyed, 
To those shy and hidden blooms 
Which in forest coverts stay, 
Sending wandering perfumes 
Out as guide to show the way, 
All she knew, to...Read more of this...

326. Song—The Posie

by Robert Burns
 O LUVE will venture in where it daur na weel be seen,
O luve will venture in where wisdom ance has been;
But I will doun yon river rove, amang the wood sae green,
 And a’ to pu’ a Posie to my ain dear May.


The primrose I will pu’, the firstling o’ the year,
And I will pu’ the pink, the emblem...Read more of this...

Desespoir

by Oscar Wilde
 The seasons send their ruin as they go,
For in the spring the narciss shows its head
Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,
And in the autumn purple violets blow,
And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow;
Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again
And this grey land grow green with summer rain
And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.

But...Read more of this...

A Dream of the Unknown

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I DREAM'D that as I wander'd by the way 
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, 
And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring 
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 5 
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 
But kiss'd it and...Read more of this...

Oh, Why Not Be Happy?{1}

by Victor Hugo
 ("A quoi bon entendre les oiseaux?") 
 
 {RUY BLAS, Act II.} 


 Oh, why not be happy this bright summer day, 
 'Mid perfume of roses and newly-mown hay? 
 Great Nature is smiling—the birds in the air 
 Sing love-lays together, and all is most fair. 
 Then why not be happy 
 This bright summer day,...Read more of this...

The Faded Bouquet

by Mary Darby Robinson
 FAIR was this blushing ROSE of May,
And fresh it hail'd morn's breezy hour,
When ev'ry spangled leaf look'd gay,
Besprinkled with the twilight show'r;
When to its mossy buds so sweet,
The BUTTERFLY enamour'd flew,
And hov'ring o'er the fragrant treat,
Oft bath'd its silken wings in dew. 

SWEET was this PRIMROSE of the dale,
When on its native turf it grew;
And deck'd with charms this...Read more of this...

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