The First Snow Fall

The First Snow Fall

The following beautiful lines are by James Russel Lowell, though not included in the latest edition of his works:

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 fur, and hemlock,

Wore ermine too dear for an earl,

And the poorest twig on the elm tree

Was fringed inch deep with pearl.

From sheds now 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 head-stone 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 her of the good Allfather,

Who cares for us here below.

And again I looked at the snow-fall,

And thought of the leaden sky

That arched o'er our first great sorrow

When the mound was heaped so high.

I remember the gradual patience

That fell from the cloud like snow,

Flake by flake, healing and hiding

The sear of that deep-stabbed 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 baek, did not know

That my kiss was given to her sister,

Folded close under deepening snow.

James Russel Lowell

1:27, p. 1

1.21.1860