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THE GOLDEN VIOLET.
To her a wreath he bid me take,
Such as in our fair garden wake
Love's hopes and fears,—oh! suiting well
Such gentle messages to tell.
That wreath I to the lady brought,
I found her in her hall alone,
So changed, your sculptors never wrought
A form in monumental stone
So cold, so pale. The large dark eye
Shone strangely o'er the marble cheek;
The lips were parted, yet no sigh
Seem’d there of breathing life to speak;
The picture at whose feet she knelt,
The maiden Mother and her Child,
The hues which on that canvass dwelt,
With more of human likeness smiled.