Signs of Spring

Even though we live in a town, I'm constantly aware of the changing seasons and all the nature to be found around me. Now it's February, I 'm on the lookout for snowdrops. I found some today. Loads and loads actually, but they look better photographed in clusters .

Snowdrops which means gocce di neve are known as bucaneve in Italian, which gives the idea of them piercing their way through the snow.

Here is a lovely poem about snowdrops, by the Victorian poet, Caroline Norton. She was born on 22nd March 1808, the granddaughter of the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who wrote The Rivals.
Caroline Norton is mostly remembered for her successful struggle to reform unjust Victorian laws related to women's rights. In her day she was considered a female Byron and wrote many poems which express her suffering in love. Maybe she thought of herself as a snowdrop, fighting through her emotional pain.

For Snowdrops are the harbingers of Spring,--
A sort of link between dumb life and light,--
Freshness preserved amid all withering,--
Bloom in the midst of grey and frosty blight,--
Pale Stars that gladden Nature's dreary night! 

(from The Child Of The Islands - Winter, XXV)