Read the poem: “Song” (Violet! sweet violet!)

by James Russell Lowell

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American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell
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Song

Violet! sweet violet!
  Thine eyes are full of tears;
        Are they wet
        Even yet
With the thought of other years?
Or with gladness are they full,
For the night so beautiful,
And longing for those far-off spheres?

  Loved one of my youth thou wast,
  Of my merry youth,
        And I see,
        Tearfully,
All the fair and sunny past,
All its openness and truth,
Ever fresh and green in thee
As the moss is in the sea.

  Thy little heart, that hath with love
  Grown colored like the sky above,
  On which thou lookest ever,—
        Can it know
        All the woe
Of hope for what returneth never,
All the sorrow and the longing
To these hearts of ours belonging?

  Out on it! no foolish pining
        For the sky
        Dims thine eye,
Or for the stars so calmly shining;
Like thee let this soul of mine
Take hue from that wherefor I long,
Self-stayed and high, serene and strong,
Not satisfied with hoping—but divine.

Violet! dear violet!
Thy blue eyes are only wet
With joy and love of Him who sent thee,
And for the fulfilling sense
Of that glad obedience
Which made thee all that Nature meant thee!

< < < Song (to M.L.)
Sonnets > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell

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by James Russell Lowell

Song

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