For too long, the speaker has associated violets not with spring fields and shy wildflowers, but with the counterfeit world of florists’ shops—tissue paper, pins, bright lights, cabarets, and numbing wine. Her thoughts had strayed far from “sweet real things” like wide fields and clear streams, from the God-made loveliness she once knew. The mood is rueful, a confession of having lost touch with simple, natural joy. Then, suddenly, someone—perhaps a lover—unwittingly makes her dream of real violets again, and with them, her soul’s forgotten gleam. It’s a quiet turn: the poem opens into a delicate hope, as if a door she thought was shut has gently swung ajar. The final lines leave us with that fragile, reawakened feeling—the rediscovery of an inner light she didn’t realize she’d been missing.
Sonnet — Summary
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, 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; 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.