Snow-Bound | Page 2

long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a
sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,

In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And,
when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,

On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder
bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth
below,--
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of
ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up
where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;

A
smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what
once was road;
The bridle post an old man sat
With loose-flung
coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;

[Illustration]
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant
splendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.
A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"

Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons
less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened
hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,

We cut the solid whiteness through.
[Illustration]
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel
walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare
Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With
many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.
[Illustration]
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the
prisoned brutes within.
The old horse thrust his long head out,
And
grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,

And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and
hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornéd patriarch
of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage
head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.
All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath
before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through
dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To
the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.

A solitude made more intense
By dreary voicéd elements,
The
shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying
blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat

Of ghostly finger-tips
of sleet.
[Illustration]
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of
toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and
thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried

brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to
us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an
almost human tone.
As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of
wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller,
sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care,
our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,--
[Illustration]
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top
the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled
between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We
watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught
the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old,
rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While
radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And
through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed
blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks'
heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell

The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: "_Under the
tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are
making tea._"
The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range
stood
[Illustration]
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows
flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine

Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy
black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and
such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed
where'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.
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 ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as
it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the
chimney laughed,
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the
fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A
couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,

Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered
slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket
stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.
[Illustration]
What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the
north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could
quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.
O Time and Change!--with hair
as gray
As was my sire's that winter day,
How strange it seems,
with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother!
only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now,--
The dear home
faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.

Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;

Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,
Those lighted faces smile no
more.
We tread the paths their