I’m glad I’m not in town today
For townfolk always have a way
Of hating snow—they stamp it off
Their feet and shake their clothes and cough
And fume and curse it every time
It comes. It seems a crime
To say you love it when it snows—
Down in the town. Yet I suppose
They’re not to blame—it always brings
A peck of ills and heartache things
Down in the town. There’s such
A lot of misery—so much
That sleeps along until the touch
Of snow and cold wakes it again
To sudden pain.
You really can’t blame folks a bit
For hating snow and cursing it
The way they do
Down in the town—it’s natural to.
[Illustration:
_In great cascades of blinding white
Shot through with light
Of morning suns._]
But here—up here, it’s driving white
Across the gray tree-trunks; all night
It fell and laid one blanket more
Upon the store
We had.
And I am glad,
For here—up here, it’s not a crime
To love the snow in winter-time.
It’s hip-deep in the clover-field
Behind the barn—the woods there shield
The sun. I took a jog
On show-shoes with the dog
Across the ditch that marks the clover’s edge
Into a straggling hedge
Of saplings—only yesterday they were
So cocky and so straight—each baby-fir
A prickly little grenadier; and now—
How vanquished! Every bough
Limp, beaten, crushed, as if
The snow had said—“Oh stiff
And upright little tree
How much of me
Do you suppose your arms will hold?”
To which the tree made answer bold—
“I am a young and husky fir—
All you can give, I’ll hold, Good Sir!”
A rather glib and short
Retort,
At which the snow was somewhat stirred,
He took the sapling at his word!
For so it looked, the way the snow
Had laid them low,
Swamped to their ears,
Those prickly little grenadiers.
That’s what it is to be so small
And near the ground, but when you’re grand and tall
You shake your boughs and let it fall
In great cascades of blinding white,
Shot through with light
Or morning suns—spray after spray.
The gray boles sway
With every windy gust that breaks
To dust and flakes
The tumbling clumps,
Baptizing brush and stumps
And huge-heaped logs—a deluge, white
And dazzling bright.
And still it snows,
And blows
Across the orchards in big drifts;
But for the sunbursts through the rifts
Of cloud today,
It’s never quit. And when it goes away—
This snow up here, it will be free from blame
For it will leave in beauty as it came.
The sun will loosen all the bonds
That bind the baby-sapling’s fronds
Close to the ground,
And they’ll rebound.
The ice-locked creek will show its green
And swirling eddies in between
The marble bridges flung across
Its twisted banks of moss.
Each day will see new colors peep;
Gray bark and green—the deep
Rich sheen of laurels—short, stalky grapes,
Stiff, jagged, red—and twisted shapes
Of leaves turned russet, shrivelled, sere—
Still dangling from the stems of the dead year—
All penciled bold against the bright,
Cold snow, like patterns on a page of spotless white.
And each new day will leave some strange,
Blue arabesque upon the eastern range,
Drag streaks of ochre down the fields, and shade
The purple brush-lands deeper where they fade
Off to the west, and pools of melting snow will hold
The winter evening sun’s last splash of gold.
These are the things God keeps in store
For us up here, when in a few days more,
This snow—that’s driving hard today,
Will melt away.