THE SNOWSTORM
(1847)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Announced by
all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the
snow, and, driving over the fields,
Seems nowhere
to alight: the whited air
hides hills
and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the
farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and
the traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all
friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the
radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a
tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the
north wind’s masonry.
Out of an
unseen quarry evermore
Furnished
with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his
white bastions with projected roof
Round every
windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the
myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful,
so savage, nought cares he
For number or
proportion. Mockingly
On coop or
kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like
form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the
farmer’s lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the
farmer’s wife sighs; and at the gate
A tapering
turret overtops his work.
And when his
hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his
own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when
the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in
slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an
age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic
architecture of the snow.