Classic Poem

One of the “earlier verses” sent to the Anti-Slavery Standard . In a letter to Mr. Gay, dated Elmwood, December 22, 1849, Lowell wrote: “Print that as if you loved it. Let not a comma be blundered. Especially I fear they will put ‘gleaming’ for ‘gloaming’ in the first line unless you look to it. May you never have the key which shall unlock the whole meaning of the poem to you!”

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 snow-birds,
 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 snow-fall,
 And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
 When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered 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 close under deepening snow.