THE FIRST SNOWFALL
The snow had begun in the gloaming,And busily all the nightHad been heaping fields and highwayWith a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlockWore ermine too dear for an earl,And the poorest twig on the elm treeWas ridged inch deep with pearl.
From sheds new roofed with CarraraCame chanticleer’s muffled crow,The stiff rails were softened to swan’s-downAnd still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the windowThat noiseless work of the sky,And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet AuburnWhere 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?”[167]And I told of the good All-FatherWho cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snowfall,And thought of the leaden skyThat arched o’er our first great sorrow,When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patienceThat fell from that cloud like snow,Flake by flake, healing and hidingThe scar on our deep-plunged woe.
And again to the child I whispered,“The snow that husheth all,Darling, the merciful FatherAlone can make it fall.”
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;And she, kissing back, could not knowThat my kiss was given to her sister,Folded close under deepening snow.James Russell Lowell.