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 farmhouse at the garden’s
end.
The sled and traveler 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.
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
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kernel he hangs Parian
wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden
thorn,
Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to
wall,
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 is own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished
Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by
stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s
night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
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