Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
A September Violet
By Robert Underwood Johnson (18531937)F
The slopes were veiled in chilly rain;
We said: It is the Summer’s shroud,
And with the brooks we moaned aloud,—
Will sunshine never come again?
Serene, warm, cloudless, crystal day,
As though September, having blown
A blast of tempest, now had thrown
A gauntlet to the favored May.
And, careless of the course of Time,
The bloomy days began anew.
Then, as a happy dream comes true,
Or as a poet finds his rhyme—
I found thee, friendliest of the flowers!
Then Summer’s joys came back, green-leaved,
And its doomed dead, awhile reprieved,
First learned how truly they were ours.
Thee vernal dreams, till thou, like me,
Didst climb to thy imagining?
Or was it that the thoughtful Spring
Did come again, in search of thee?