Classic Poem

The snow! the snow! how drearily falls the snow!
Mingling with fitful gusts and driving sleet,
Piling up new-made graves in many a row,
And weaving for the earth a winding-sheet.

The flowers that lately bloomed upon our path,
Now stiff and cold, torn rudely from their stem,
Lie in the footprints of the tempest's wrath,
And fierce, rough winds are laughing over them.

The snow! the dismal snow! Oh, how it seeks
The chinks and crannies where poor orphans shiver,
And falls upon the sick man's sunken cheeks,
Like frozen spray cast up from death's cold river.

The snow! the snow! how kindly falls the snow!
It wraps a mantle round the shivering earth,
To shield her when the North winds rudely blow,
And wakes her cold, dull ears to songs of mirth.

How lovingly it folds the fields of grain,
And graves of gentle flowers that prostrate lie,
Which must be buried ere they rise again,
And cannot quickened be except they die.

The snow! the snow! how kindly falls the snow!
It calls sweet Mercy forth to help the poor,
And bids her heal the wounds of human woe,
And seek her work of love from door to door.

Oh happy they whom God hath taught to feel
For hearts laid bare to Winter's rudest breath;
O'er them the snow of age shall gently steal,
And peace reign o'er the winter of their death.