To Violets

Robert HerrickSeventeenth-century EnglishPoem

WELCOME, maids of honour!
You do bring
In the spring,
And wait upon her.

She has virgins many,
Fresh and fair;
Yet you are
More sweet than any.

You’re the maiden posies,
And so graced
To be placed
’Fore damask roses.

Yet, though thus respected,
By-and-by
Ye do lie,
Poor girls, neglected.

Cultural reading

Reading the poem

Violets are greeted as maids of honour who bring in the spring and are ranked ahead of the damask roses, until the last stanza notes that they will shortly lie neglected.

Language notes

Text and edition

The English text follows the fixed historical witness in The Oxford Book of English Verse; no modern third-party translation is included.