Letitia Elizabeth Landon

 

The Snowdrop

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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 colors mellow
The universal green.
Now solemn yews are bending
'Mid gloomy fires around;
And in long dark wreaths descending
The ivy sweeps the ground.

No sweet companion pledges
Thy health as dewdrops 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.

Source:

The Poetical Works Of Miss Landon
Copyright 1853
Phillips, Sampson, And Co.
110 Washington Street
Boston