BY MRS. M.A. LIVERMORE.

The gentle, laughing, spring had come
With eye and cheek so bright;
The bird glanced through the clear, blue air,
On wing of golden light;
And earth, in gladness, lay and smiled,
To see the beauteous sight.
The streams went singing to the sea,
And dancing to their song;
Its carpet, had the young grass spread
The hills and vales among;
Yet not a flower its bloom had shed,
The fresh green earth along.
Not yet the violet had unsealed
Its blue and loving eye;
Nor had the primrose dared unfold,
For fear that it might die;
And on the tree-tops shook the leaves,
Which oped to kiss the sky.
But so it chanced, one gentle day,
While softly wept the rain,
And sadly sighed the mourning breeze,
The flowers to see again;
A silvery snow-flake fell to earth,
Escaped from winter's chain.
And daintily it laid itself
Where greenest grass was spread,
And where the bland and warm south-wind,
Soft-footed, loved to tread,
And here the white-robed fugitive
Made for itself a bed.
The flower-goddess smiled to see
This new-born snow that fell;
"I'll change it to a flower," said she
"By magic touch, and spell;
For 'twill be long ere blossoms ope,
That spring doth love so well."
Then with a wand of living light,
She touched the feathery snow;
And on it, radiant from her cheek,
There streamed a sunny glow.
Forth from the tiny, crystal flake,
The pearly petals came;
The stem sprang up—there waved a flower,—
The SNOW-DROP was its name!