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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Snow-flakes


              1Out of the bosom of the Air,
              2    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
              3Over the woodlands brown and bare,
              4    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
              5        Silent, and soft, and slow
              6        Descends the snow.

              7Even as our cloudy fancies take
              8    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
              9Even as the troubled heart doth make
            10    In the white countenance confession,
            11        The troubled sky reveals
            12        The grief it feels.

            13This is the poem of the air,
            14    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
            15This is the secret of despair,
            16    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
            17        Now whispered and revealed
            18        To wood and field.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Bibliographical and Critical Notes, Riverside Edition (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1890), III, 69. PS 2250 E90 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1858
Publication date note: In Birds of Passage
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 4:2002/4/6

Composition date: 1858
Composition date note: 1858?
Rhyme: ababcc

Other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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