The Violet Lyrics
Someone asks a timid blue violet what it is doing and why it bows its head. The flower answers in the second verse: it is listening to the nightingale. Two verses of six lines, one question and one answer.
The Violet
Timid, blue-eyed flower
In thy native bower
'Mid the moss so green,
Say, what art thou doing?
Why so lowly bowing
Ever art thou seen?
Joy within me springeth
When so sweetly singeth
Lone the nightingale;
To her song attending
I am lowly bending
In my peaceful vale.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/the-violet/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Tune
- Read the question in a soft, curious voice, and the answer with a dreamy smile
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does The Violet Mean?
The poem is a conversation between a person and a flower. In the first verse the person speaks to a "timid, blue-eyed flower" growing in its bower, a leafy shelter, among green moss. Violets do hang their heads, and the person wonders: what are you doing there, and why do you always look down?
The second verse gives the flower's reply. Joy springs up inside it whenever the nightingale sings, and so it bends low to listen, in its "peaceful vale", which is a quiet valley. A nightingale is a small brown bird famous for its beautiful song, sung from hidden places.
The language is old: thy and thou are old words for "your" and "you", and "art thou seen" is "are you seen". Said aloud, the questions in the first verse make it a good poem to read with a child who can answer back as the flower.
History and Origin
The songbook this copy comes from (first published in 1884, revised in 1911) prints the name Jane Taylor under the poem, but a song index of the period links the words to the composer Naegeli, so who wrote them is not certain. The same words appear as a song in a children's songbook of 1887, Songs and Games for Little Ones, so the poem was being sung in schools and nurseries in the 1800s.
Learning Activities
- Question and answer: one child reads the first verse, another the second, and then they swap parts.
- Bow like a violet: stand with arms hanging and let the head droop slowly on the words 'lowly bowing'.
- Find violets: in spring, look for violets in a garden or park, and notice which way the flowers face.
- Listen for birds: sit quietly for one minute and count the bird sounds you can hear, as the violet does.