"O VER PURPUREUM!" -- Violet-colored Spring Perhaps, good poet, in your vernal days The simple truth might justify the phrase; But now, dear Virgil, there is no such thing! Perhaps, indeed, in your Italian clime, Where o'er the year, if fair report be true, Four seasons roll, instead of barely two, There still may be a verdant vernal time; But here, on these our chilly northern shores, Where April gleams with January's snows, -- Not e'en a violet buds; and nothing "blows," Save blustering Boreas, -- dreariest of bores. O ver purpureum? where the Spring discloses Her brightest purple on our lips and noses! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ADAM AND HIS FATHER by KAREN SWENSON THE WINDING BANKS OF ERNE; OR, THE EMIGRANT'S ADIEU TO HIS BIRTHPLACE by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE FIRST LESSON by EMILY DICKINSON SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY THE KEARSARGE (1894) by JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE |