And thou, fair flower of hope!
Like a sweet violet, delicate and frail,
Hast reared thy tender stem beneath an oak,
Whose noble limbs o'ershadowed thee. The damp
Cold dews of the unhealthy world fell not
On thee; the gaudy sunshine of its pomp
Came tempered to thine eye in milder beams.
The train of life's inevitable ills
Fell like the April rain upon the flowers,
But thou wert shielded--no rude pelting storms
Came down unbroken by thy sheltering tree.
Fallen is the oak,
The monarch of a forest sleeps. Around,
The withered ivy and the broken branch
Are silent evidence of greatness past,
And his sweet, cherished violet has drunk
The bitter dews until its cup was full.
And now strange trees wave o'er it, and the shade
Of weeping-willows and down-swaying boughs
Stretch toward it with melancholy sorrow--
All sympathizing with the drooping flower.
And years shall pass ere living trees forget
That stately oak, and what a fame he shed
O'er all the forest, and how each was proud
That he could call himself a kindred thing.
Long may the beauty of that violet
Grow in the soil of hearts; till, delicate,
Yet ripened into summer loveliness,
A thousand branches all shall contending cast
Their friendly shadows in protection there!