The Snow-Drop
Fear no more, thou timid Flower!
Fear thou no more the winter's might,
The whelming thaw, the ponderous shower,
The silence of the freezing night!
Since Laura murmur'd o'er thy leaves
The potent sorceries of song,
To thee, meek Flowret! gentler gales
And cloudless skies belong.
...........
Her eye with tearful meanings fraught,
She gaz'd till all the body mov'd
Interpreting the Spirit's thought-
The Spirit's eager sympathy
Now trembled with thy trembling stem,
And while thy droopedst o'er thy bed,
With sweet unconscious sympathy
Inclin'd the drooping head.
The first two verses from Samuel Taylor Coleridge peom The Snowdrop
............
My favourite flower, the snowdrop - the flower of Imbolc. So fragile yet, in the language of metaphors, so brave. To Francis of Assisi, known for his love of the natural world, they were considered an emblem of hope ...... and so they still are. At the start of 2009 with so much to concern us in the world, this little flower remains just that, a symbol of hope as a new cycle of growth starts to unfurl.
