Sonnet

By Alice Dunbar

I HAD no thought of violets of late,  
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet      
In wistful April days, when lovers mate        
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.     
The thought of violets meant florists’ shops,         5
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;         
And garish lights, and mincing little fops     
And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.          
So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,       
I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams;             10
The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.       
And now—unwittingly, you’ve made me dream      
Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.