XXVII VIOLETS
Reading edition
Where burning tapers hold White suppliant hands from arms of gold Around the Host; there no one sets Sweet violets.
Fair roses droop and die In halls of dance and minstrelsy; But who within those walls has met The violet?
Where faintly smiles the sun Through chequered skies on beech groves dun, There hides in vales sequestered yet The violet.
Where I shall lie asleep, Some friend, perhaps, a tear will weep, And if our love knew no regrets, Strew violets.