Poems (Prescott)/Her First Snow

by Mary Newmarch Prescott

HER FIRST SNOW

Drop gentle snowflakes, one by one:
Be not afraid of the noonday sun.
Build up your palaces, crystal-white,
Aladdin-like, in a single night.
Hide the old fences under your veil;
Cover the dimples of hill and of dale;
Let not the trees go naked, but place
On their shining limbs a web of your lace.
Visit the martin-house, if you will,
Or lodge all night on my window-sill;
Call on the well-sweep, and wreathe it about
With fringes, as well as the water-spout.
Give to the door-bell a fleecy cap;
Lend the salt hay-cocks an ermine wrap:
And drift just enough to make the world look
As if it had stepped from a fairy-book.

"Yes," said the Snowflakes, "it's time we should rally,
 To tuck in the roots of the grass,
To shine on the hill-top and whiten the valley
 And touch the world up as we pass.
All the huts that are ruined and ugly
 Let us change into marble halls,
We will cover the naked hedges up snugly,
 And festoon the ragged stone walls.
We will build our drifts on the king's highway,
 Mimic the shape of star or feather,
We will silently waltz the livelong day,
 Or sculpture garlands together.
Never, outside of the spider's loom,
 Shall be spun such gauzes as ours,
And never, after the summer's bloom,
 Shall be seen such wonderful flowers."