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.

Amid the Chaos of Terror, a Bit of Refreshing Solitude

Springtime at the Sayen Gardens,
Hamilton, New Jersey.

Decades ago, high up on the promontory of Seminary Hill in Bucksport, Maine, I regularly enjoyed a perfect view of the Penobscot River as it flows into the funnel-like neck of Penobscot Bay that opens wide its island-strewn mouth all the way down east, where it eventually greets Mount Desert Island off the coast of The Pine Tree State.

From atop that hill, I took many walks during each season.  One of the most enjoyable of those strolls occurred at the advent of spring, after the end of mud season in Maine.
 
In one particular spot, at the crest of that hill, there lay a long, wide, colorful bed of brilliantly yellow daffodils – far more than I could count. 

Each year, prodded by warm breezes and the encouraging rays of the sun, they rose from the life-giving earth, “tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”