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VIOLETS.
SENT IN A LITTLE BOX.
- LET them lie, yes, let them lie,
- They’ll be dead to‐morrow:
- Lift the lid up quietly
- As you’d lift the mystery
- Of a shrouded sorrow.
- Let them lie, the fragrant things,
- Their sweet souls thus giving:
- Let no breezes’ ambient wings,
- And no useless water‐springs
- Lure them into living.
- They have lived—they live no more:
- Nothing can requite them
- For the gentle life they bore
- And up‐yielded in full store
- While it did delight them.
- Yet, poor flowers, not sad to die
- In the hand that slew ye,
- Did ye leave the open sky,
- And the winds that wandered by,
- And the bees that knew ye.
- Giving up a small earth place,
- And a day of blooming,
- Here to lie in narrow space,
- Smiling in this sickly face,
- This dull air perfuming?
- O my pretty violets dead,
- Coffined from all gazes,
- We will also smiling shed
- Out of our flowers witherèd,
- Perfume of sweet praises.
- And as ye, for this poor sake,
- Love with life are buying,
- So, I doubt not, ONE will make
- All our gathered flowers to take
- Richer scent through dying.
