The First Snowfall
By 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 fir 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 were 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 of our deep-plunged 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.
Read the latest issues of New Lyre, our journal of timeless art and culture.
Click on covers to order hard copies directly from Amazon, or become a paid subscriber and download the latest issues here.
I on the other hand enjoyed them ‘cliches’ and as a father felt his loss and his distracted grief.
Lowell doesn't offer the living sister the deeply regretful apology that was her due, no doubt because he had no idea it was her due. He rhymes decently enough, but his understanding is utterly commonplace and utterly irresponsible. That he and his countless brethren could be responsible for the tragedy he bemoans, never occurred to him. He wasn't, as they say, the sharpest tool in the box. The sister who was distractedly kissed by him and whom he never sees as just as vulnerable as her dead sister to Nature's assaults, receives no pity from him. Had she known where his head was when she was being kissed, she might've said "Then why am I here?" Guilt would've been beyond him to admit. He was strictly a tool of Nature. An enemy agent that obeys its master without the slightest pang of conscience, and indeed with a sense of perfect righteousness.