Snow Bound, and other poems Part 4 From Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.

The inmates of the family at the Whittier homestead who are referred to in the poem were my father, mother, my brother and two sisters, and my uncle and aunt both unmarried. In addition, there was the district school-master who boarded with us. The "not unfeared, half-welcome guest" was Harriet Livermore, daughter of Judge Livermore, of New Hampshire, a young woman of fine natural ability, enthusiastic, eccentric, with slight control over her violent temper, which sometimes made her religious profession doubtful. She was equally ready to exhort in school-house prayer-meetings and dance in a Washington ball-room, while her father was a member of Congress. She early embraced the doctrine of the Second Advent, and felt it her duty to proclaim the Lord's speedy coming. With this message she crossed the Atlantic and spent the greater part of a long life in travelling over Europe and Asia. She lived some time with Lady Hester Stanhope, a woman as fantastic and mentally strained as herself, on the slope of Mt. Lebanon, but finally quarrelled with her in regard to two white horses with red marks on their backs which suggested the idea of saddles, on which her titled hostess expected to ride into Jerusalem with the Lord. A friend of mine found her, when quite an old woman, wandering in Syria with a tribe of Arabs, who with the Oriental notion that madness is inspiration, accepted her as their prophetess and leader. At the time referred to in Snow-Bound she was boarding at the Rocks Village about two miles from us.

In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we had scanty sources of information; few books and only a small weekly newspaper. Our only annual was the Almanac. Under such circumstances story-telling was a necessary resource in the long winter evenings. My father when a young man had traversed the wilderness to Canada, and could tell us of his adventures with Indians and wild beasts, and of his sojourn in the French villages. My uncle was ready with his record of hunting and fishing and, it must be confessed, with stories which he at least half believed, of witchcraft and apparitions. My mother, who was born in the Indian-haunted region of Somersworth, New Hampshire, between Dover and Portsmouth, told us of the inroads of the savages, and the narrow escape of her ancestors. She described strange people who lived on the Piscataqua and Cocheco, among whom was Bantam the sorcerer. I have in my possession the wizard's "conjuring book," which he solemnly opened when consulted. It is a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic printed in 1651, dedicated to Dr. Robert Child, who, like Michael Scott, had learned "the art of glammorie In Padua beyond the sea," and who is famous in the annals of Massachusetts, where he was at one time a resident, as the first man who dared petition the General Court for liberty of conscience. The full title of the book is Three Books of Occult Philosophy, by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Knight, Doctor of both Laws, Counsellor to Caesar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of the Prerogative Court.

"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same."--Cor. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosophy, Book I. ch. v.

"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 rivet and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled 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." Emerson. The Snow Storm.

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite, shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind blew east; we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,-- Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm, And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag, wavering to and fro, Crossed and recrossed the winged snow And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, And through the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,-- A universe of sky and snow The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden-wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!" Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew; With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, To guard our necks and ears from snow, We cut the solid whiteness through. And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers. We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave with wonder gazed about; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked; The horned patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled, with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back,-- The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became, And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. The crane and pendent trammels showed, The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed; While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle, Whispered the old rhyme: "_Under the tree, When fire outdoors burns merrily, There the witches are making tea_."

The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness at their back. For such a world and such a night Most fitting that unwarming light, Which only seemed where'er it fell To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed; The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet, The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row, And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood.

What matter how the night behaved? What matter how the north-wind raved? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. O Time and Change!--with hair as gray As was my sire's that winter day, How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on! Ah, brother! only I and thou Are left of all that circle now,-- The dear home faces whereupon That fitful firelight paled and shone. Henceforward, listen as we will, The voices of that hearth are still; Look where we may, the wide earth o'er Those lighted faces smile no more. We tread the paths their feet have worn, We sit beneath their orchard trees, We hear, like them, the hum of bees And rustle of the bladed corn; We turn the pages that they read, Their written words we linger o'er, But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made, No step is on the conscious floor! Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own!