The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky 5
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out-- 10
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, midvein, the circling race
Of lifeblood in the sharpened face--
The coming of the snowstorm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar 5
Of ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did our nightly chores:
Brought in the wood from out of doors, 10
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows, 15
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent. 20
Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro, 25
Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow;
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window frame,
And through the glass the clothesline posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 30
So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of nature's geometric signs,
In starry flake and pellicle, 5
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent 10
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below--
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvelous shapes: strange domes and towers 15
Rose up where sty or corncrib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle post an old man sat, 20
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 25
All day the gusty north wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow mist shone.
No church bell lent its Christian tone 30
To the savage air; no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak;
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicèd elements--
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree boughs swaying blind, 5
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger tips of sleet.
--_Snow-Bound._
1. Outline, stanza by stanza, the story told. Who
tells it? Where is the scene laid? How many days
and nights are covered?
2. Compare this with the previous poem for
clearness, pleasant sound, pictures shown, new
ideas. Which do you like better? The last line of
"The Snowstorm" interprets lines 14-25, page 197.
How?
3. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was born at
Haverhill, Massachusetts. _Snow-bound_, from which
this extract is taken, gives a good description of
his home and family. A great deal of his writing
was done while editor of various magazines and
newspapers. He was for a long time connected with
the _Atlantic Monthly_. Many of his poems describe
country life in New England; others retell old
stories of pioneer days. He died at Amesbury,
Massachusetts.