April.

A violet by a mossy stone,         Half hidden from the eye,     Fair as a star, when only one,         Is shining in the sky.                            Wordsworth     I have found violets. April hath come on,     And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain     Falls in the beaded drops of summer time.     You may hear birds at morning, and at eve     The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,     Cooing upon the eaves, and drawing in     His beautiful bright neck, and from the hills,     A murmur like the hoarseness of the sea     Tells the release of waters, and the earth     Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves     Are lifted by the grass - and so I know     That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard     The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring.     Smell of my violets! I found them where     The liquid South stole o'er them, on a bank     That lean'd to running water. There's to me     A daintiness about these early flowers     That touches me like poetry. They blow     With such a simple loveliness among     The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out     Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts     Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.     I love to go in the capricious days     Of April and hunt violets; when the rain     Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod     So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.     It may be deem'd unmanly, but the wise     Read nature like the manuscript of heaven     And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!     Ye spirits of habitual unrest,     And read it when the "fever of the world"     Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life     Hath yet one spring unpoison'd, it will be     Like a beguiling music to its flow,     And you will no more wonder that I love     To hunt for violets in the April time.