The Snow-Storm

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Emerson Poems: D-G
Emerson Poems: H-O
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Painting and Sculpture
The Park
The Problem
The Rhodora
Saadi
The Snow-Storm
Sphynx
"Sursum Corda"
"Suum Cuique"
Tact
Threnody
To Ellen, At the South
To Eva
To J.W.
To Rhea
Uriel
The Visit
Wood Notes I
Wood Notes II
The World-Soul
Xenophanes

Texts : Early Emerson Poems : Emerson Poems: P-Z : THE SNOW-STORM

The Snow-Storm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er 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 steed and 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, naught 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 sighs, and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the 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.

from: Emerson, Ralph Waldo.  Early Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York, Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company: 1899. Introduction by Nathan Haskell Dole. 

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Painting and Sculpture ] [ The Park ] [ The Problem ] [ The Rhodora ] [ Saadi ] [ The Snow-Storm ] [ Sphynx ] [ "Sursum Corda" ] [ "Suum Cuique" ] [ Tact ] [ Threnody ] [ To Ellen, At the South ] [ To Eva ] [ To J.W. ] [ To Rhea ] [ Uriel ] [ The Visit ] [ Wood Notes I ] [ Wood Notes II ] [ The World-Soul ] [ Xenophanes ] [ Emerson Poems: A-C ] [ Emerson Poems: D-G ] [ Emerson Poems: H-O ] [ Emerson Poems: P-Z ]