Snow-Bound | Page 6

mock defence
Against the
snow-ball's compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The
charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound;
And, following where
the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
[Illustration]
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic
way
Of one who, prompt at Duty's call,
Was free to urge her claim
on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother's aid
would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered
in the sufferer's sight

The Quaker matron's inward light,
The

Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect

Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The
Christian pearl of charity!
So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard
from last.
The Almanac we studied o'er,
Read and reread our little
store,
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel,
mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good
or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood's meek,
drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a
somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
[Illustration]
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper
to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones
the horizon spread;
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the
marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
And daft
McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica's everglades.
[Illustration]

And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks,
A
Turk's head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,

Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,

Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding knell and dirge of death;

Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale;
The latest culprit sent to jail;

Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,

And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,

The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow

Was melted in the genial glow;

Wide swung again our ice-locked
door,
And all the world was ours once more!
Clasp, Angel of the backward look
And folded wings of ashen gray

And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The
weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past;

Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and
woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim
with tears,
Green hills of life that slope to death,
And haunts of

home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With
the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed

The restless sands' incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours
succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty
keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids;
I hear
again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For
larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The
century's aloe flowers to-day!
Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its
strife,
The worldling's eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful
city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early
friends--the few
Who yet remain--shall pause to view
These
Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,

And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the
wood-fire's blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet
me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Or
lilies floating in some pond,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;

The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows
not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The
benediction of the air.
[Illustration]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Snow-Bound, by John
Greenleaf Whittier
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