_Her Nazarites were purer than Snow.—Lamentations 4:7._
Purity is one of the most striking characteristics of the new-fallen
snow. “It is,” says Sturm, “a result of the congregated reflections
of light from the innumerable small faces of the crystals. The same
effect is produced when ice is crushed to fragments. It is extremely
light and thin, consequently full of pores, and these contain air; it
is farther composed of parts more or less compact, and such a substance
does not admit the sun’s rays to pass, neither does it absorb them; on
the contrary, it reflects them very powerfully, and this gives it the
dazzling white appearance we see in it.”
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You shall look out upon a gray, frozen earth, and a gray, chilling sky.
The trees stretch forth naked branches imploringly. The air pinches
and pierces you; a homesick desolation clasps around your shivering,
shrinking frame, and then God works a miracle. The windows of heaven
are opened, and there comes forth a blessing. The gray sky unlocks
her treasures, and softness and whiteness and warmth and beauty float
gently down upon the evil and the good. Through all the long night,
while you sleep, the work goes noiselessly on. Earth puts off her
earthliness; and when the morning comes, she stands before you in the
white robes of a saint. The sun hallows her with baptismal touch, and
she is glorified. There is no longer on her pure brow any thing common
or unclean. The Lord God hath wrapped her about with light as with a
garment. His divine charity hath covered the multitude of her sins,
and there is no scar or stain, no “mark of her shame,” or “seal of her
sorrow.” The far-off hills swell their white purity against the pure
blue of the heaven. The sheeted splendor of the fields sparkles back a
thousand suns for one. The trees lose their nakedness and misery and
desolation, and every slenderest twig is clothed upon with glory.
Wheat-fields, corn-fields, and meadow-lands are all alike wrapped by
its dazzling mantle. Here and there some straggling weeds refuse to be
hidden, and stand up in unsightly contrast with the pure white surface
around them. The stone walls, entirely concealed, only look like a low
ridge; but the snow can not contrive to cover up the rail-fences, but
only heap up a bank by their side. The woods, with their bare trunks
and intermingling branches, cast a shadow, notwithstanding the absence
of leaves, and we are glad again to come into the warm sunshine.
Evergreens do not brighten a winter landscape. They seem as if they
were mourning in sympathy with their spoiled brethren of the forest;
and look dusky and almost black, like somber sentinels along the road.
The snow sparkles with its crystals. What purity! “Whiter than snow!”
The longing of the soul for purity, the faith in the cleansing power
that is able thus to purify, are breathed in the prayer, “Wash me, and
I shall be whiter than snow!”
The deep, deep snow offers no temptations to wander in the fields, or
step away from the beaten track. One well-defined road, from which
the driver reluctantly turns aside on meeting another sleigh, has
alone broken the crust on its surface, and determines its depth.
Foot-passengers step out into the deep snow, and wait till the sleigh
passes, but are glad at once to step back again. How well would it
be if Christians thus dreaded to step aside from the narrow way
that leadeth unto life, and were as ready to return to its secure
footing,—the path beaten by blessed foot-prints!
Beecher.
* * * * *
What comes from heaven is pure; but the tendency is to soil it, and
that which keeps nearest heaven most escapes the pollution of earth.
At the foot of the Alps you find the roaring, muddy stream, the
clay-stained snow. But on the summit of Mt. Blanc is a pure robe of
celestial white, never stained, only sometimes covered with a roseate
gauze to salute the setting sun.
Kirk.
* * * * *
The snow is very beautiful when it has first fallen. Many of our poets
have had recourse to the snow-flake for some of their finest poetical
images; nor do I know a fitter emblem of innocence and purity than a
falling flake, ere it receives the stain of earth. There are but few
things with which we can compare snow for purity. The Psalmist says,
“He giveth the snow like wool; he scattereth the hoar frost like
ashes.” “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Milton has made
beautiful allusion to it in his hymn on the Nativity, where he says,—
“It was the winter mild,
While the heaven-born Child
All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies;
Nature in her awe to Him
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize.
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.
“Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly vail of maiden white to throw,
Confounded that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.”
T. Miller.
_The Snow-Wreath._
Oh, what is so pure, so soft, or so bright,
As a wreath of the new-fallen snow!
It seems as if brushed from the garments of light,
To fall on us mortals below.
But here is no home for thee, child of the sky;
Thy purity here must decay,
Thy being be transient, thy beauty all die,
Nor a trace of thy loveliness stay.
Go, go to the mountain-top,—there make thy nest;
’Tis nearer thy own native home;
And live on its peak like a silvery crest,
Where nothing to soil thee can come.
This emblem—how apt of a virtuous mind
Made pure by the Spirit divine!
Like a snow-wreath ’tis marred in a world so unkind,
Fit only in heaven to shine.
J. B. Waterbury.
_The First Snow._
To-day has been a pleasant day,
Despite the cold and snow:
A Sabbath stillness filled the air,
And pictures slumbered every where,
Around, above, below.
We woke at dawn and saw the trees
Before our windows white;
Their limbs were clad with snow-like bark,
Save that the under sides were dark,
Like bars against the light.
The fence was white around the house,
The lamp before the door;
The porch was glazed with pearlèd sleet,
Great drifts lay in the silent street,
The street was seen no more!
Long trenches had been roughly dug,
And giant foot-prints made;
But few were out; the streets were bare;
I saw but one pale wanderer there,
And he was like a shade!
I seemed to walk another world,
Where all was still and blest;
The cloudless sky, the stainless snows,—
It was a vision of repose,
A dream of heavenly rest,—
A dream the holy night completes;
For now the moon hath come,
I stand in heaven with folded wings,
A free and happy soul that sings
When all things else are dumb!
Richard Henry Stoddard.
* * * * *
Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,
At first thin-wavering, till at last the flakes
Fall broad and wide and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white;
’Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits its evening ray,
Earth’s universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man.
Thomson.
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Grace.
_The Lord giveth Snow like wool.—Psalm 47:18._
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Cold and dreary as winter is, it is not devoid of interest to the man
of taste and Christian sentiment. Look at the delicate snow-flake.
With what grace of motion has God endowed it! How childlike, gently,
peacefully, confidingly the little creature comes down into our
turbulent earth! It is not difficult to conceive that it comes as an
attendant on some angel, whose movements it imitates.
Kirk.
* * * * *
We have sat and watched the fall of snow until our head grew dizzy, for
it is a bewitching sight to persons speculatively inclined. There is an
aimless way of riding down, a simple, careless, thoughtless motion, that
leads you to think that nothing can be more nonchalant than snow. And
then it rests upon a leaf or alights upon the ground, with such a
dainty step, so softly, so quietly, that you almost pity its virgin
helplessness. If you reach out your hand to help it, your very touch
destroys it. It dies in your palm, and departs as a tear.
Nowhere is snow so beautiful as when one sojourns in a good
old-fashioned mansion in the country, bright and warm, full of home
joy and quiet. You look out through large windows and see one of those
flights of snow in a still, calm day, that make the air seem as if it
were full of white millers or butterflies, fluttering down from heaven.
There is something extremely beautiful in the motion of these large
flakes of snow. They do not make haste, nor plump straight down with a
dead fall, like a whistling rain-drop. They seem to be at leisure; and
descend with that quiet, wavering, sideway motion which birds sometimes
use when about to alight. You think you are reading; and so you are,
but it is not in the book that lies open before you. The silent, dreamy
hour passes away, and you have not felt it pass. The trees are dressed
with snow. The long arms of evergreens bend with its weight; the rails
are doubled, and every post wears a starry crown. The well-sweep, the
bucket, the well-curb are fleeced over. And still the silent, quivering
air is full of trooping flakes, thousands following to take the place
of all that fall. The ground is heaped, the paths are gone, the road is
hidden, the fields are leveled, the eaves of buildings jut over, and,
as the day moves on, the fences grow shorter, and gradually sink from
sight. All night the heavens rain crystal flakes. Yet, that roof, on
which the smallest rain pattered audible music, gives no sound. There
is no echo in the stroke of snow, until it waxes to an avalanche and
slips from the mountains. Then it fills the air like thunderbolts.
Beecher.
* * * * *
Falling snow is beautiful in a forest. It comes wavering down among
the trees without a whisper, and takes to the ground without the sound
of a footfall. Evergreen trees grow intense in contrasts of dark-green
ruffled with radiant white. Bush and tree are powdered and banked up.
Not the slightest sound is made in all the work which fills the woods
with winter soil many feet deep. When the morning comes, then comes
the sun also. The storm has gone back to its northern nest to shed its
feathers there. The air is still, cold, bright. But what a glory rests
upon the too brilliant earth! Are these the January leaves?—is this
the winter efflorescence of shrub and tree? You can scarcely look for
the exceeding brightness. Trees stand up against the clear, gray sky,
brown and white in contrast, as if each trunk and bough and branch
and twig had been coated with ermine, or with white moss. There is an
exquisite airiness and lightness in the masses of snow on trees and
fences, when seen just as the storm left them. The wind or sun soon
disenchants the magic scene.
Ib.
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_The Snow-Storm._
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems no where to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And vails the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the house-mates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north-wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry, evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Carves his white bastions, with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door,
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage; naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,
Mauger the farmer’s sighs, and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic, in those structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
R. W. Emerson.
_The Spirit of the Snow._
The night brings forth the morn;
Of the cloud is lightning born;
From out the darkest earth the brightest roses grow;
Bright sparks from black flints fly;
And from out a leaden sky
Comes the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.
The wondering air grows mute,
As her pearly parachute
Cometh slowly down from heaven, softly floating to and fro;
And the earth emits no sound,
As lightly on the ground
Leaps the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.
At the contact of her tread,
The mountain’s festal head
As with chaplets of white roses seems to glow;
And its furrowed cheeks grow white,
With a feeling of delight,
At the presence of the Spirit of the Snow.
As she wendeth to the vale,
The longing fields grow pale,
The tiny streams that vein them cease to flow;
And the river stays its tide,
With wonder and with pride,
To gaze upon the Spirit of the Snow.
But little does she deem
The love of field or stream;
She is frolicsome and lightsome as the roe;
She is here and she is there;
On the earth or in the air,
Ever-changing, floats the Spirit of the Snow.
Now, a daring climber, she
Mounts the tallest forest tree,—
Out along the dizzy branches doth she go!
And her tassels, silver-white,
Down-swinging through the night,
Mark the pillow of the Spirit of the Snow.
Now she climbs the mighty mast,
Where the sailor-boy at last
Dreams of home, in his hammock down below;
There she watches in his stead,
Till the morning light shines red,
Then evanishes the Spirit of the Snow.
Or, crowning with white fire
The minster’s topmost spire
With a glory such as sainted foreheads show,
She teaches fanes are given
Thus to lift the heart to heaven,
There to melt like the Spirit of the Snow.
Now above the loaded wain,
Now beneath the thundering train,
Doth she hear the sweet bells tinkle and the snorting engine
blow;
Now she flutters on the breeze,
Till the branches of the trees
Catch the tossed and tangled tresses of the Spirit of the Snow.
Now an infant’s balmy breath
Gives the Spirit seeming death,
When adown her pallid features fair, Decay’s damp dew-drops flow;
Now, again her strong assault
Can make an army halt,
And trench itself in terror ’gainst the Spirit of the Snow.
At times, with gentle power,
In visiting some bower,
She scarce will hide the holly’s red, the blackness of the sloe;
But ah! her awful might,
When down some Alpine hight
The hapless hamlet sinks before the Spirit of the Snow.
On a feather she floats down
The turbid rivers brown,—
Down to meet the drifting navies of the winter-freighted foe;
Then swift o’er the azure walls
Of the awful waterfalls,
Where Niagara leaps roaring, glides the Spirit of the Snow.
With her flag of truce unfurled,
She makes peace o’er all the world,—
Makes bloody battle cease awhile, and war’s unpitying woe;
Till its hollow womb within
The deep-mouthed culverin
Incloses, like a cradled child, the Spirit of the Snow.
In her spotless linen hood,
Like the other sisterhood,
She braves the open cloister where the psalm sounds sweet and low,
When some sister’s bier doth pass
From the minster and the mass,
Soon to sink into the earth, like the Spirit of the Snow.
But at times so full of joy,
She will play with girl and boy,
Fly from out their tingling fingers, like white fire-balls on
the foe;
She will burst in feathery flakes;
And the ruin that she makes
Will but wake the crackling laughter of the Spirit of the Snow.
Or, in furry mantle dressed,
She will fondle on her breast
The embryo buds awaiting the near Spring’s mysterious throe
So fondly that the first
Of the blossoms that outburst
Will be called the beauteous daughter of the Spirit of the Snow.
Ah! would that we were sure
Of hearts so warmly pure,
In all the winter weather that this lesser life must know;
That when shines the Sun of Love
From a warmer realm above,
In its life we may dissolve, like the Spirit of the Snow.
Dublin University Magazine.
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