Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836/The Snowdrop
18
THE SNOWDROP.
Thou beautiful new comer,
With white and maiden brow;
Thou fairy gift from summer,
Why art thou blooming now?
This dim and sheltered alley
Is dark with winter green;
Not such as in the valley
At sweet spring-time is seen.
The lime-tree’s tender yellow,
The aspen's silvery sheen,
With mingling colours mellow
The universal green.
Now solemn yews are bending
Mid gloomy firs around;
And in long dark wreaths descending,
The ivy sweeps the ground.
No sweet companion pledges
Thy health as dew-drops pass;
No rose is on the hedges,
No violet in the grass.
Thou art watching, and thou only,
Above the earth’s snow tomb;
Thus lovely, and thus lonely,
I bless thee for thy bloom.
Though the singing rill be frozen,
While the wind forsakes the west;
Though the singing birds have chosen
Some lone and silent rest;
Like thee, one sweet thought lingers
In a heart else cold and dead,
Though the summer’s flowers, and singers,
And sunshine, long hath fled:
’Tis the love for long years cherished,
Yet lingering, lorn, and lone;
Though its lovelier lights have perished,
And its earlier hopes are flown.
Though a weary world hath bound it,
With many a heavy thrall;
And the cold and changed surround it,
It blossometh o’er all.