Snow-Bound | Page 2

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;
[Illustration]?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.
[Illustration]?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.
[Illustration]?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 hornéd 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 voicéd 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.
[Illustration]?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,--
[Illustration]?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
[Illustration]?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.
[Illustration]
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,
[Illustration]?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