Floral Poetry. 
217 
And when at last the driving snow, 
A strange, ill-omened sight, 
Came whitening all the plains below :— 
To trembling Eve it seemed—affright 
With shivering cold and terror bowed— 
As if each fleecy vapour cloud 
Were falling as a snowy shroud, 
To form a close enwrapping pall 
For earth’s untimely funeral. 
Then all her faith and gladness fled, 
And nothing left but blank despair, 
Eve madly wished she had been dead, 
Or never born a pilgrim there ; 
But as she wept, an angel bent 
Elis way adown the firmament, 
And on a task of mercy sent 
He raised her up, and bade her cheer 
Her drooping heart, and banish fear : 
• 
And catching, as he gently spoke, 
A flake of falling snow, 
He breathed on it, and bade it take 
A form and bud and blow : 
And ere the flake had reached the earth, 
Eve smiled upon the beauteous birth, 
That seemed, amid the general dearth 
Of living things, a greater prize 
Than all the flowers in Paradise. 
