I Spoke to the Violet by John Shaw Neilson

Shy one, I said, you can take me away in a breath,
But I like not the coat that you come in -- the colour of death.  

The silence you come with is sweeter to me than a sound,
But I love not the colour -- I saw it go into the ground.            

And, though you haunt me with all that is health to a rhyme,
My thoughts are as old as the native beginning of Time.  

Your scent does encompass all beauty in one loving breath,
But I like not the coat that you come in -- the colour of death.        

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 July 1937;
and later in
Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse by John Shaw Neilson, 1938;
A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, 1968;
Cross-Country: A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes, 1984; and
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.