Title:  The Snow-Drop

Author:  Sarah S. Mower

Release Date:  March 4, 2004 [eBook #11439]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  Us-ASCII

***Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK the snow-drop***

E-text prepared by Amy Petri and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders from images provided by Internet Archive Children’s Library and University of Florida

Note:  Images of the original pages are available through the project
      for Preservation and Access for American and British Children’s
      Literature, 1850-1869, from an original source held at the
      University of Florida.  See
      http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/tc/juv/UF00001888.jpg
      or
      http://purl.fcla.edu/fcl
a/tc/juv/UF00001888.pdf

THE SNOW-DROP

A Holiday Gift

By miss Sarah S. Mower.

1851

PREFACE.

The Authoress of “The snow-drop” has been misfortune’s child.  Disease laid its relentless hand upon her in early childhood.  It deprived her of a common school education and the world’s sweet intercourse.  Such has been its nature, that, except on one occasion, she has not been able to leave home for more than six years.

“The snow-drop” would never have appeared had not life’s wintry hour given it birth!  It was written to beguile tedious time.  Winds, as they played through groves that surround her aged father’s retired and humble dwelling, sweet songsters, as they caroled from spray to spray, and the ripple of the Androscoggin, as it glided past, to her ear, were nature’s sweet minstrels, that cheered her heart in solitude and inspired her, too, to attempt the artless strains of nature.

This little work, at the suggestion of her friends, is presented and dedicated to the benevolent public, humbly hoping and trusting that it may give pastime to the leisure hour, impress more fully moral and religious sentiment, and afford some little return for the thought she has bestowed upon it.

THE SNOW-DROP[1]

   Sweet little unassuming flower,
   It stays not for an April shower,
   But dares to rear its tiny head,
   While threat’ning clouds the skies o’erspread.

   It ne’er displays the vain desire
   To dress in flaunting gay attire;
   No purple, scarlet, blue, or gold,
   Deck its fair leaves when they unfold.

   Born on a cold and wintry night,
   Its flowing robes were snowy white;
   No vernal zephyrs fan its form—­
   It often battles with the storm.

   It never drank mild summer’s dew,
   But chilling winds around it blew;
   And hoary frost his mantle spread
   Upon the little snow-drop’s bed.