Banner: Chambers' Edinburgh Journal

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 445.   New Series. SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1852. Price 1½d.

VIOLETS:

SENT IN A TINY BOX.

Let them lie—ah, let them lie!
 Plucked flowers—dead to-morrow;
 Lift the lid up quietly,
 As you'd lift the mystery
 Of a buried sorrow.
Let them lie—the fragrant things,
 All their souls thus giving;
 Let no breeze's ambient wings
 And no useless water-springs
 Mock them into living.
They have lived—they live no more;
 Nothing can requite them
 For the gentle life they bore,
 And up-yielded in full store
 While it did delight them.
Yet, I ween, flower-corses fair!
 'Twas a joyful yielding,
 Like some soul heroic, rare,
 That leaps bodiless forth in air
 For its loved one's shielding.
Surely, ye were glad to die
 In the hand that slew ye,
 Glad to leave the open sky,
 And the airs that wandered by,
 And the bees that knew ye;
Giving up a small earth-place
 And a day of blooming,
 Here to lie in narrow space,
 Smiling in this smileless face
 With such sweet perfuming.
O ye little violets dead!
 Coffined from all gazes,
 We will also smile, and shed
 Out of heart-flowers withered
 Perfume of sweet praises.
And as ye, for this poor sake,
 Love with life are buying,
 So, I doubt not, One will make
 All our gathered flowers to take
 Richer scent through dying.

Index | Next Article.

Printed and Published by W. and R. Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by W. S. Orr, Amen Corner, London; D. N. Chambers, 55 West Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'Glashan, 50 Upper Sackville Street, Dublin.—Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to Maxwell & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all applications respecting their insertion must be made.