Plant a white rose at my feet,
Or a lily fair and sweet,
With the humble mignonette
And the blue-eyed violet. [ Julia C. R. Dorr, Earth to Earth ]

That queen of secrecy, the violet. [ Keats ]

The purple heath and golden broom
On moory mountains catch the gale.
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume.
The violet in the vale. [ Montgomery ]

Here eglantine embalm'd the air,
Hawthorne and hazel mingled there;
The primrose pale, and violet flower.
Found in each cliff a narrow bower;
Fox-glove and nightshade, side by side.
Emblems of punishment and pride,
Group'd their dark hues with every stain
The weather-beaten crags retain. [ Sir Walter Scott ]

The harebells nod as she passes by,
The violet lifts its tender eye.
The ferns bend her steps to greet.
And the mosses creep to her dancing feet; [ Julia C. R. Dorr, Over The Wall ]

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows. [ William Shakespeare ]

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopies with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine. [ William Shakespeare ]

The honey-bee that wanders all day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden over.
To gather in his fragrant winter store.
Humming in calm content his winter song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips.
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely pressed
Within the poison chalice. [ Anne C. Lynch Botta ]

The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time:
The violet sweet, but quickly past the prime:
White lilies hang their heads, and soon decay,
And white snow in minutes melts away. [ Dryden ]

Beauty without grace is a violet without smell. [ Proverb ]

A love-tint flushes the wind-flower's cheek,
Rich melodies gush from the violet's beak.
On the rifts of the rock, the wild columbines grow.
Their heavy honey-cups bending low. [ Sarah Helen Whitman ]

The moss-clad violet, fragrant and concealed like hidden charity. [ J. F. Hollings ]

The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago.
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood.
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men.
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland glade and glen. [ Bryant ]

Ye may trace my step over the wakening earth by the winds which tell of the violet's birth. [ Mrs. Hemans ]

Most gladly would I give the bloodstained laurel for the first violet which March brings us, the fragrant pledge of the new-fledged year. [ Schiller ]

What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle - oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be! [ Beecher ]

The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow, or with taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, is wasteful and ridiculous excess. [ William Shakespeare ]

The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. [ William Shakespeare ]