The Professor and the White Violet
By Oliver Herford
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
THE PROFESSOR.
Tell me, little violet white,
If you will be so polite,
Tell me how it came that you
Lost your pretty purple hue?[1]
Were you blanched with sudden fears?
Were you bleached with fairies’ tears?
Or was Dame Nature out of blue,
Violet, when she came to you?
THE VIOLET.
Tell me, silly mortal, first,
Ere I satisfy your thirst
For the truth concerning me ¬—
Why you are not like a tree?
Tell me why you move around,
Trying different kinds of ground,
With your funny legs and boots
In the place of proper roots?
Tell me, mortal, why your head,
Where green branches ought to spread,
Is as shiny smooth as glass,
With just a fringe of frosty grass?
Tell me—Why, he’s gone away!
Wonder why he wouldn’t stay?
Can he be—well, I declare! —
Sensitive about his hair?
HERFORD, OLIVER. “THE PROFESSOR AND THE WHITE VIOLET,” IN ARTFUL ANTICKS, 58-9. NEW YORK: THE CENTURY CO., 1894.
[1] The viola blanda, also known as sweet white violet, is a perennial plant native to North America.
Contexts
In a Life Magazine issue from November 1894, editor Robert Bridges noted that, in Artful Anticks, “when [Oliver Herford] makes rhymes about a kitten, a dormouse, a spider, or a crocodile, you are absolutely certain that he has put himself on such friendly terms with each animal that he is not only able to reveal the quirks of its mind, but draw a picture of them. That is why grown folks will get as much fun out of this book as children.”
Herford was a well-known poet, humorist writer, and illustrator.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
ere: Before, formerly, at a former time.
Resources for Further Study
- Read more poems by Oliver Herford in All Poetry.
- Reusable Art features a growing collection of Oliver Herford’s illustrations.
