The Snow-Storm

The Snow-Storm

Original Text
Poems< (1846: London: Chapman, 1847). PS 1624 .A1 Robarts Library
1Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
2Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
3Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
4Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
5And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
6The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
7Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
8Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
9In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
10Come see the north wind's masonry.
11Out of an unseen quarry evermore
12Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
13Curves his white bastions with projected roof
14Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
15Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
16So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
17For number or proportion. Mockingly,
19A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
20Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
22A tapering turret overtops the work.
23And when his hours are numbered, and the world
24Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
25Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
26To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
27Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
28The frolic architecture of the snow.

Notes

18] Parian: like marble from the Greek island of Paros. Back to Line
21] Maugre: in spite of. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1841
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2002
Rhyme