Poems of George Meredith

The Snowdrop is the prophet of the flowers;
 It lives and dies upon its bed of snows;
 And like a thought of spring it comes and goes,
 Hanging its head beside our leafless bowers.
 The sun's betrothing kiss it never knows,
 Nor all the glowing joy of golden showers;
 But ever in a placid, pure repose,
 More like a spirit with its look serene,
 Droops its pale cheek veined thro' with infant green.
 Queen of her sisters is the sweet Wild Rose,
 Sprung from the earnest sun and ripe young June; The year's own darling and the Summer's Queen!
 Lustrous as the new-throned crescent moon.
 Much of that early prophet look she shows,
 Mixed with her fair espoused blush which glows,
 As if the ethereal fairy blood were seen;
 Like a soft evening over sunset snows,
 Half twilight violet shade, half crimson sheen.
 Twin-born are both in beauteousness, most fair
 In all that glads the eye and charms the air;
 In all that wakes emotions in the mind
 And sows sweet sympathies for human kind.