National Poetry Month continues...

[icewolf]

"The Violet"

by Jane Taylor

Down in a green and shady bed
     A modest violet grew
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
     As if to hide from view.

And yet it was a lovely flower
     Its colors bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower
     Instead of hiding there,

Yet there it was content to bloom
     In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused its sweet perfume,
     Within the silent shade.

Then let me to the valley go,
     This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
     In sweet humility.

1804





"Jane Taylor (1783-1824) was an engraver and writer who wrote poetry and one novel for adults and children. She often collaborated with her sister, Ann [later Mrs Gilbert] in the writing of poems for children. Some of Jane and Ann Taylor's poems, such as 'Twinkle, twinkle little star', became popular nursery rhymes. Jane Taylor's satires for adults--Essays in Rhyme on Morals and Manners (1816)--are sometimes overly didactic, but, as in 'Recreation', are occasionally humorous. ... The [text] of... 'The Violet' ... [is] taken from the Taylors' Original Poems for Infant Minds Vol. I (1804)... ."

-From Women Romantic Poets 1785-1832, edited by Jennifer Breen (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1994).