Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE VIOLET-GIRL, by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE VIOLET-GIRL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: When fancy will continually rehearse
Last Line: The veil that hides our vilest mortal sore.
Alternate Author Name(s): Houghton, 1st Baron; Houghton, Lord
Subject(s): Flowers; Poverty; Violets


WHEN Fancy will continually rehearse
Some painful scene once present to the eye,
'Tis well to mould it into gentle verse,
That it may lighter on the spirit lie.

Home yester-eve I wearily returned,
Though bright my morning mood and short my way,
But sad experience in one moment earned
Can crush the heaped enjoyments of the day.

Passing the corner of a populous street,
I marked a girl whose wont it was to stand,
With pallid cheek, torn gown, and naked feet,
And bunches of fresh Violets in each hand.

There her small commerce in the chill March weather
She plied with accents miserably mild;
It was a frightful thought to set together
Those healthy blossoms and that fading child: --

-- Those luxuries and largess of the earth,
Beauty and pleasure to the sense of man,
And this poor sorry weed cast loosely forth
On Life's wild waste to struggle as it can!

To me that odorous purple ministers
Hope-bearing memories and inspiring glee,
While meanest images alone are hers,
The sordid wants of base humanity.

Think after all this lapse of hungry hours,
In the disfurnished chamber of dim cold,
How she must loathe the very scented flowers
That on the squalid table lie unsold!

Rest on your woodland banks and wither there,
Sweet preluders of Spring! far better so,
Than live misused to fill the grasp of care,
And serve the piteous purposes of woe.

Ye are no longer Nature's gracious gift,
Yourselves so much and harbingers of more,
But a most bitter irony to lift
The veil that hides our vilest mortal sore.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net