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THE GOLDEN VIOLET.
Youth, beauty, rank, and wealth, all these combined,—
Can these be wretched? Mystery of the mind!
Whose happiness is in itself, but still
Has not that happiness at its own will.
And she was wretched; she, the young, the fair,
The good, the kind, bow'd down in her despair.
Ay, bitterest of the bitter, this worst pain,—
To know love's offering has been in vain;
Rejected, scorn'd, and trampled under foot,
Its bloom and leaves destroy'd, not so its root.
"He loves me not,"—no other word or sound
An echo in Olympia’s bosom found.
She thought on many a look, and many a tone,
From which she gather'd hope,—now these were gone,
