Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Washington and Lowell Day/First Snowfall

by James Russell Lowell

 

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

The snow had begun in the gloaming.
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fur and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came chanticleer’s muffled crow;
The stiff rails softened to swan’s-down
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky.
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds.
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently.
As did robins the babes in the wood .

Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, “ Father, who makes it snow?”
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o’er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow.
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I whispered.
“The snow that husheth all.
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!”

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow