And her dim vision could distinguish nought
Save the black spiders crawling on the wall,
And the dead violets she herself had bought
With the few coppers she had stored away
From her poor scanty earnings day by day.
For when before the market-stall she stood,
Her little purse clasped tightly in her hand,
She needs must purchase—for each dewy bud
Seemed like a messenger from fairyland;
And well her fine poetic fancy knew
The sheltered places where the violets grew.
And when she raised them to her eager lips
With the pure rapture of a little child,
The dewdrops twinkled on their azure tips,
Till the young dreamer bent her face and smiled
With the sweet consciousness that they would bring
Into the meanest slum a breath of Spring.
Returning home, her joyous footsteps fell
Like the soft patter of the summer rain;
And oh, _one_ weary sufferer knew it well,
And moaned a welcome from his bed of pain!
Close to his breast she crept, and kneeling there,
He twined the violets in her sunny hair.
Charmed from his fretful mood, the sufferer laid
One thin white hand upon her worn gray dress;
‘Dear child!’ he murmured, while the sunbeams played
At hide-and-seek amid each wandering tress,
‘Withdraw the blind—let in the rosy morn;
_I_ too am grateful that the Spring is born!’
FANNY FORRESTER.
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Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._