Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889 | | | | A September Violet | | By Robert Underwood Johnson (1853–1937) |
| | | FOR days the peaks wore hoods of cloud, | |
| The slopes were veiled in chilly rain; | |
| We said: It is the Summer’s 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 |
| |
| 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 |
| |
| Half wondered at, half unbelieved— | |
| I found thee, friendliest of the flowers! | |
| Then Summer’s joys came back, green-leaved, | |
| And its doomed dead, awhile reprieved, | |
| First learned how truly they were ours. | 20 |
| |
| 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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