Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature: An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891. Vols. IXXI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 18611889 | | A September Violet | By Robert Underwood Johnson (18531937) |
| FOR days the peaks wore hoods of cloud, | |
The slopes were veiled in chilly rain; | |
We said: It is the Summers shroud, | |
And with the brooks we moaned aloud, | |
Will sunshine never come again? | 5 |
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At last the west wind brought us one | |
Serene, warm, cloudless, crystal day, | |
As though September, having blown | |
A blast of tempest, now had thrown | |
A gauntlet to the favored May. | 10 |
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Backward to Spring our fancies flew, | |
And, careless of the course of Time, | |
The bloomy days began anew. | |
Then, as a happy dream comes true, | |
Or as a poet finds his rhyme | 15 |
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Half wondered at, half unbelieved | |
I found thee, friendliest of the flowers! | |
Then Summers joys came back, green-leaved, | |
And its doomed dead, awhile reprieved, | |
First learned how truly they were ours. | 20 |
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Dear violet! Did the Autumn bring | |
Thee vernal dreams, till thou, like me, | |
Didst climb to thy imagining? | |
Or was it that the thoughtful Spring | |
Did come again, in search of thee? | 25 | | |
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