Snowdrop. 
(FRIEND IN NEED—HOPE.) 
T HIS first-born flower of the flowers of spring is generally 
deemed the emblem of hope, although some have regarded 
it as symbolic of humility, of gratitude, of consolation, of in¬ 
nocence, and lastly, but by no means least—of friendship in 
adversity. 
In the year’s earliest days, while the leafless trees and the 
otherwise flowerless ground are white with frost—when the 
sharp winds are roaring over the wold, and when the whole 
earth looks dead and drear—this fragile blossom, gently dis¬ 
placing the incumbent snow, uprears its tiny fairy bells and 
its tender little green leaves, looks smilingly into our admiring 
faces, and seems to bid our chilled hearts take courage—to 
remind us that “hope springs eternal in the human breast,” 
and, as Mrs. Oakes Smith has so beautifully expressed in “The 
Sinless Child,” 
“And wheresoe’er the weary heart 
Turns in its dim despair, 
The meek-eyed blossom upward looks, 
Inviting it to prayer.” 
The classic name for this flower is galanthus, signifying milk 
flower; it is the earliest blower of all our wild blossoms—in 
mild seasons displaying its beauties even in January, but more 
frequently waiting until the following month, for which reason 
it is sometimes named “Fair Maid of February.” 
In allusion to its often uprearing its head amid the snow, as 
if to rival its purity and whiteness, Mrs. Barbauld has: 
“As Flora’s breath, by some transforming power, 
Had changed an icicle into a flower. ” 
Mary Robinson, a now almost forgotten poetess, has left us 
the following pretty verses on this little flower: 
