SNOW-FLAKES.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.*

1

Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

2

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals

Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"cloud-folds'

"cloudy fancies''

"cloudy bosom''

"secret of despair'"

THE SNOW STORM.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.*

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

*For Biography see page 250.

To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Notes and Questions.

Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"slow structures'' "'invests' "frolic architecture'' "mimic" "radiant''

MIDWINTER.

JOHN T. TROWBRIDGE.

1

The speckled sky is dim with snow,
The light flakes falter and fall slow;
Athwart the hilltop, rapt and pale,
Silently drops a silvery veil;
And all the valley is shut in
By flickering curtains gray and thin.

2

But cheerily the chickadee

Singeth to me on fence and tree;
The snow sails round him as he sings,
White as the down on angel's wings.

3

I watch the snow flakes as they fall
On bank and brier and broken wall;
Over the orchard, waste and brown,
All noiselessly they settle down,
Tipping the apple boughs and each
Light quivering twig of plum and peach.

4

On turf and curb and bower roof
The snowstorm spreads its ivory woof;
It paves with pearl the garden walk;
And lovingly round tattered stalk
And shivering stem its magic weaves
A mantle fair as lily leaves.

5

The hooded beehive, small and low,
Stands like a maiden in the snow;
And an old door slab is half hid
Under an alabaster lid.

ican writer and lives in Cambridge. He was for a time one of the editors of "Our Young Folks' Magazine".

Notes and Questions.

What comparison does the poet make in the second stanza? In the fourth?

What does the poet say in the fourth stanza the snowstorm does?