Poem by Henry Abbey

The Vendor of Violets

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
This was the cry I heard
As I passed through the street of a city;
And quickly my heart was stirred
To an incomprehensible pity,
At the undertone of the cry;
For it seemed like the voice of one
Who was stricken, and all undone,
Who was only longing to die.

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
The voice came nearer still.
"Surely," I said, "it is May,
And out on valley and hill,
The violets blooming to-day,
Send this invitation to me
To come and be with them once more;
I know they are dear as can be,
And I hate the town with its roar."

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
Children of sun and of dew,
Flakes of the blue of the sky,
There is somebody calling to you
Who seems to be longing to die;
Yet violets are so sweet
They can scarcely have dealings with death.
Can it be, that the dying breath,
That comes from the one last beat
Of a true heart, turns to the flowers?

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
The crier is near me at last.
With my eyes I am holding her fast.
She is a lovely seller of flowers.
She is one whom the town devours
In its jaws of bustle and strife.
How poverty grinds down a life;
For, lost in the slime of a city,
What is a beautiful face?
Few are they who have pity
For loveliness in disgrace.
Yet she that I hold with my eyes,
Who seems so modest and wise,
Has not yet fallen, I am sure.
She has nobly learned to endure.
Large, and mournful, and meek,
Her eyes seem to drink from my own.
Her curls are carelessly thrown
Back from white shoulder and cheek;
And her lips seem strawberries, lost
In some Arctic country of frost.
The slightest curve on a face,
May give an expression unmeet;
Yet hers is so perfect and sweet,
And shaped with such delicate grace,
Its loveliness is complete.

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
I hear the cry once more;
But not as I heard it before.
It whispers no more of death;
But only of odorous breath,
And modest flowers, and life.
I purchased a cluster, so rife
With the touch of her tapering hand,
I seem to hold it in mine.
I would I could understand,
Why a touch seems so divine.

1. Odyle
2. In Memory of General Grant
3. The Roman Sentinel
4. On a Great Warrior
5. The Miser

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