It's Trying To Be Spring!

 It's April and it's trying to be Spring. On the calendar it is Spring but it still feels like Winter. Easter will be here soon. Here is a beautiful free image from Graphics Fairy.


I love violets and our yard usually has some small wild ones growing. I'll be looking for them soon. They've inspired some of my Spring art coming soon.

O wind, where have you been,
That you blow so sweet?
Among the violets
Which blossom at your feet.

The honeysuckle waits
For Summer and for heat
But violets in the chilly Spring
Make the turf so sweet.'
~Christina Rosetti~

April

~Nathaniel Parker Willis~

"A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky."
~Wordsworth~

I have found violets. April hath come on,
And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain
Falls in the beaded drops of summer-time.
You may hear birds at morning, and at eve
The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,
Cooing upon the eaves, and drawing in
His beautiful, bright neck; and, from the hills,
A murmur, like the hoarseness of the sea,
Tells the release of waters, and the earth
Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves
Are lifted by the grass; and so I know
That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard
The drooping of the velvet foot of Spring.
Take of my violets! I found them where
The liquid south stole o'er them, on a bank
That leaned to running water. There's to me
A daintiness about these early flowers,
That touches me like poetry. They blow
With such a simple loveliness among
The common herbs of pasture, and breath out
Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts
Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.
I love to go in the capricious days
Of April and hunt violets, when the rain
Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod
So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.
It may be deemed too idle, but the young
Read nature like the manuscript of Heaven,
And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!
Ye spirits of habitual unrest,
And read it, when the "fever of the world"
Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life
Hath yet one spring unpoisoned, it will be
Like a beguiling music to its flow,
And you will no more wonder that I love
To hunt for violets in the April-time.