Snow-Bound

One of my favorite poets is John Greenleaf Whittier.  I first read one of his works, Snow-Bound, as a teenager studying in the frosty northern realm of mid-Maine.  Since that first reading, it has always been one of my favorites.

It’s a lyrical, auto-biographical depiction of his childhood and later recollections upon his life.  Below are a few excerpts wherein Whittier describes a blizzard that occurred in the 1800’s while he was still a farm boy.

I have taken the liberty to select just a few stanzas and parts thereof, and reordered them for your reading.  Enjoy.

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

It sank from sight before it set.

So all night long the storm roared on:

The morning broke without a sun,

All day the gusty north-wind bore

The loosening drift its breath before.

A chill no coat, however stout,

Of homespun stuff could quiet shut out.

Shut in from all the world without,

We sat the clean-winged hearth about,

Content to let the north-wind roar

In baffled rage at pane and door,

While the red logs before us beat

The frost-line back with tropic heat;

And, when the second morning shone,

We looked upon a world unknown,

On nothing we could call our own.

No cloud above, no earth below, --

A universe of sky and snow!

Just like winter storm PAX!  Thanks for reading.  Be careful out there.