Snowdrops

In spite of the frosts and cold, the first snowdrops appeared a couple of days ago and brought such lovely thoughts of spring. The birds have already begun their dawn and evening choruses and after this exceptionally cold winter, it feels like it could really be spring at last.

Wordsworth's poetry is, to me, too verbose and kind of 'cluttered'. Too many words that say so little as though he is attempting to express something simple but ends up complicating himself with silly phrases. The 'Prelude' has some fabulous lines, but his later works leave me wondering why he is ranked as one of the 'greats'. I mean take for example his poem 'To a Snowdrop' - it is almost as bad as Shelley's 'Skylark' - 'bird thou never wert....'

Ah well, the snowdrops have appeared and anyone who has ever seen snowdrops after snow appreciates their fragile beauty. It might have been better if Wordsworth had written far more simply than these clumsy lines ('harbinger' seems to be a particularly favourite word with poets of that era):

Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!