by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator
It snowed here yesterday afternoon - all afternoon, and while there was not much accumulation, the ground did turn white and the birds all flocked to the feeder as if it would be there last opportunity to snarf down the life-sustaining birdseed before winter overtook them.
The snow brings hardships, but it also ushers in a great deal of beauty. My little farm looked like something straight out of Currier and Ives.
Today's poem, "The First Snowfall" by 19th century American poet James Russell Lowell, depicts a father discussing snow with his daughter while another daughter, one who has seemingly been dead for some time, lies buried in a little grave that is disappearing under the falling snow. Even though the verse is a bit morose, Lowell offers a beautiful image of the accumulating snow.
The First Snowfall
by James Russell Lowell
Poetry Appreciator
It snowed here yesterday afternoon - all afternoon, and while there was not much accumulation, the ground did turn white and the birds all flocked to the feeder as if it would be there last opportunity to snarf down the life-sustaining birdseed before winter overtook them.
The snow brings hardships, but it also ushers in a great deal of beauty. My little farm looked like something straight out of Currier and Ives.
Today's poem, "The First Snowfall" by 19th century American poet James Russell Lowell, depicts a father discussing snow with his daughter while another daughter, one who has seemingly been dead for some time, lies buried in a little grave that is disappearing under the falling snow. Even though the verse is a bit morose, Lowell offers a beautiful image of the accumulating snow.
The First Snowfall
by James Russell Lowell
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily
all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a
silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore
ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged
inch deep with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came
Chanticleer’s muffled crow,
The stiff rails were softened to swan’s-down,
And still
fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window
The
noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown
leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a
little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did
robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying,
“Father, who makes it snow?”
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares
for us here below.
Again I looked at the snow-fall,
And
thought of the leaden sky
That arched o’er our first great sorrow,
When that
mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell
from that cloud-like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar
of our deep-plunged woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
“The snow
that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can
make it fall!”
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she,
kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening
snow.
1 comment:
A haunting poem.
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