Down in my solitude under the snow

where nothing cheering can reach me;

here, without light to see how to grow,

I’ll trust to nature to teach me.

I will not despair, nor be idle, nor frown,

lock’d in so gloomy a dwelling;

my leaves shall run up, and my roots shall run down,

while the bud in my bosom is swelling.

Soon as the frost will get out of my bed,

from this cold dungeon to free me,

I will peer up with my little bright head;

all will be joyful to see me.

Then from my heart will young petals diverge,

as rays of the sun from their focus;

I from the darkness of earth will emerge,

a happy and beautiful crocus.

Gaily array’d in my yellow and green,

when to their view I have risen,

will they not wonder that one so serene

cam from so dismal a prison?

Many, perhaps, from so simple a flower

this little lesson may borrow –

patient to-day, through its gloomiest hour,

we come out the brighter to-morrow.

Hannah Flagg Gould. USA (1789-1865)