THE SNOWDROP.

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

LIKE pendant flakes of vegetating snow,
The early herald of the infant year,
Ere yet the adventurous crocus dares to blow,
Beneath the orchard boughs thy buds appear.
While still the cold north-east ungenial lowers,
And scarce the hazel in the leafless copse
Or shallows show their downy powdered flowers,
The grass is spangled with thy silver drops.
Yet when those pallid blossoms shall give place
To countless tribes of richer hue and scent,
Summer's gay blooms, and autumn's yellow race,
I shall thy pale inodorous bells lament.

SNOWDROPS.

DOVE ON THE CROSS."

My snowdrops, oh, my snowdrops!
How gaily every spring

They covered all our mossy banks

With many a fairy ring!

How delicately beautiful

Their little blossoms were,

Like tiny spirits hovering

Upon the chilly air.

My snowdrops, oh, my snowdrops !
I shall never without pain
See your little fragile blossoms
In the early spring again;

For my only one, my loved one,
A fragile thing like you,

Both came to me and left me

In the spring as snowdrops do.

Like the crimson light of sunset
Streaming through a wreath of snow,
So soft upon her pallid cheek
The hectic fever's glow.
As fading snowdrops gently sink
Upon the cold earth's breast,
So gently sank my holy child
To her eternal rest.

My only one, my loved one,
I shall see her yet again,
When I, too, am transplanted

From this world of grief and pain.
Her snowdrops, oh, her snowdrops!
Shall be ever dear to me-

I will cherish them as emblems
Of her immortality.

THE SNOWDROP.

As Hope, with bowed head, silent stood, And on her golden anchor leant, Watching below the angry flood,

While Winter, 'mid the dreariment Half-buried in the drifted snow,

Lay sleeping on the frozen ground,

Not heeding how the wind did blow,
Bitter and bleak on all around:
She gazed on Spring, who at her feet
Was looking at the snow and sleet.

Spring sighed, and through the driving gale
Her warm breath caught the falling snow,
And from the flakes a flower as pale
Did into spotless whiteness blow;
Hope, smiling, saw the blossom fall,

And watched its root strike in the earth,—
"I will that flower the Snowdrop call,"
Said Hope," in memory of its birth;
And through all ages it shall be
In reverence held, for love of me."

"And ever from my hidden bowers," Said Spring, "it first of all shall go, And be the herald of the flowers,

To warn away the sheeted snow: Its mission done, then by thy side

All summer long it shall remain. While other flowers I scatter wide

O'er every hill, and wood, and plain, This shall return, and ever be

A sweet companion, Hope, for thee."

Hope stooped and kissed her sister Spring,

And said, "For hours, when thou art gone,

I'm left alone without a thing

That I can fix my heart upon;

'Twill cheer me many a lonely hour,

And in the future I shall see

Those who would sink, raised by that flower,
They'll look on it, then think of thee;
And many a weary heart shall sing,
The Snowdrop bringeth Hope and Spring.

(Pensiveness-Winning Youthful Grace.)

HE "pretty Mullein," as it is called, is one of the sweetest of our meadow flowers. The yellow oxlip is larger, and not quite so common.

Cowslip wine is pleasant, and said to be slightly narcotic.

Shakspeare, speaking of the Fairy Queen, says:

"The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots we see ;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,-
In those freckles live their savours;

I must go seek some dewdrops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear."

Milton, in his masque of "Comus," has given an exquisite song to Sabrina, in which the airy tread of that goddess "o'er the cowslip's velvet head" is most delicately expressed:

"By the rushy, fringed bank,

Where grow the willow and the osier dank,

My sliding chariot stays;

Thick set with agate and the azure sheen
Of turkis blue and emerald green,

That in the channel strays;

Whilst from off the waters fleet,
Thus I set my printless feet,