Violets and Other Tales

								

the heavy perfume of flowers scents the golden atmosphere with inspiring
fragrance. One long, golden sunbeam steals silently into the
white-curtained window of a quiet room, and lay athwart a sleeping face.
Cold, pale, still, its fair, young face pressed against the satin-lined
casket. Slender, white fingers, idle now, they that had never known
rest; locked softly over a bunch of violets; violets and tube-roses in
her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown;
violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the
air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some
whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young
form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender
sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago
she had communed at an earthly altar.

III.
Far away in a distant city, a man, carelessly looking among some
papers, turned over a faded bunch of flowers tied with a blue ribbon
and a lock of hair. He paused meditatively awhile, then turning to the
regal-looking woman lounging before the fire, he asked:
"Wife, did you ever send me these?"
She raised her great, black eyes to his with a gesture of ineffable
disdain, and replied languidly:
"You know very well I can't bear flowers. How could I ever send such
sentimental trash to any one? Throw them into the fire."
And the Easter bells chimed a solemn requiem as the flames slowly licked
up the faded violets. Was it merely fancy on the wife's part, or did the
husband really sigh,--a long, quivering breath of remembrance?

THREE THOUGHTS.

  FIRST.



    How few of us
In all the world's great, ceaseless struggling strife,
Go to our work with gladsome, buoyant step,
And love it for its sake, whate'er it be.
Because it is a labor, or, mayhap,
Some sweet, peculiar art of God's own gift;
And not the promise of the world's slow smile
of recognition, or of mammon's gilded grasp.
Alas, how few, in inspiration's dazzling flash,
Or spiritual sense of world's beyond the dome
Of circling blue around this weary earth,
Can bask, and know the God-given grace
Of genius' fire that flows and permeates
The virgin mind alone; the soul in which
The love of earth hath tainted not.
The love of art and art alone.


SECOND.


"Who dares stand forth?" the monarch cried,

    "Amid the throng, and dare to give

    Their aid, and bid this wretch to live?
I pledge my faith and crown beside,
A woeful plight, a sorry sight,

    This outcast from all God-given grace.



    What, ho! in all, no friendly face,
No helping hand to stay his plight?
St. Peter's name be pledged for aye,

    The man's accursed, that is true;

    But ho, he suffers. None of you
Will mercy show, or pity sigh?"


Strong men drew back, and lordly train

    Did slowly file from monarch's look,