First Snowfall

     On a day like today--a beautiful snowfall--I always think of a poem I used to teach in my American Literature classes.  It's not a poetic masterpiece in a technical sense, but I don't worry about that stuff anyway.  I suppose that as someone who taught literature for thirty years that those things should matter to me, but they don't.  Not at all.  I don't care if it's iambic pentameter or whatever it is.  I don't care what the rhyme scheme is or even if it has one.  I prize a poem if I can see the imagery and if I can feel the emotion of the poet.  So, here's a poem for you.  Stand by my window with me, watch the falling snow on the trees and field, read, and feel the pathos--the moments in our lives when beauty, sorrow, and love are intertwined.  (If it doesn't, that's fine.  I'll enjoy it for you.)

                                              The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell

                            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 fir and hemlock
                                 Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
                            And the poorest twig on the elm tree
                                 Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

                             From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
                                  Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,
                             The stiff rails 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 snowbirds,
                                   Like brown leaves whirling by.

                             I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
                                  Where a little headstone 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 of the good All-Father
                                    Who cares for us here below.

                             Again I looked at the snowfall,
                                    And thought of the leaden sky
                             That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
                                    When that mound was heaped so high.

                              I remember the gradual patience
                                    That fell from that cloud like snow,
                              Flake by flake, healing and hiding
                                    The scar that renewed our 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 back, could not know
                               That my kiss was given to her sister,
                                      Folded deep under deepening snow.