Violets for the Violets
When the red curtains fall,
And dancers take their call,
Fair gifts of flowers are brought
From grateful thought.
I, who have none to give,
Will, try to make some live,
To be always your own
Twixt blood and bone.
May love and language make
Dog-violets for your sake,
Those blue joys in the grass
That April has?
They are wild, common flowers,
I have watched them for hours,
They bring a heart such ease,
I would try these.
First, I must make you know
The Heaven where they grow;
(The near-by place, with love,
Is Heaven above.)
An old quarry is placed
Betwixt a wood and a waste,
In it, the Earth’s bared bone
Is grassy grown.
Wild cherries grow above
Like Lady Spring in love;
Below, these violets blue,
And white ones, too.
They live from March till May.
What do they do all day?
They hear the blackbirds cry,
“Love, you and I.”
They see, at the wood’s edge,
The blackthorn star the hedge,
While wool-stalked primrose heaves
Dead hawthorn leaves.
Such rapture is their duty
Of being nothing but beauty,
The time goes in such sort,
The day’s too short.
They see, in the long night,
The stars go by in light;
And the gray-footed dew
In his wet shoe.
They see, in the cherry-branches,
How the moon fills and blanches;
How snow of cherry-petals
Wanders and settles.
Then the owls cry, “Ahoon,
Old friends are we and the moon.”
Joy comes in such full sheaf,
Night is too brief.
Now, since you may not know
Dog-violets as they grow,
Look at one now, close-to,
This frailty blue.
A sweet face, thinner than skin;
The paleness reaching within
Has purpler stripings rayed
Like snakes’ tongues, splayed.
About the heart’s gold splash
Burning white corals flash,
That are as white and bright
As living light.
And see the linen wrought
By the little hand and thought,
And stained with the blue dye
Out of the sky,
Then the green thread, the stem,
Like the Brazilian gem,
So slim, yet strong to bear
Rough April air.
What brain beats, with what blood,
To make this out of the mud?
What joy broods in the root
To bring such fruit?
Friends, I have tried to make
Dog-violets for your sake.
If this be curtain-fall,
Take now your call...
And take these April flowers
In thank for happy hours,
In hope of happier still
If Fortune will.
John Masefield