| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
| |
| 155. The Snow-Storm |
| | | By 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. | 5 |
| The sled 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. | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, | |
| Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work, | |
| The frolic architecture of the snow. | |
| |
|
|
|
