The First Snowfall
by James Russell Lowell
The snow had begun in the gleaming.
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Were 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 Chanticlear's muffled crow;
The stiff rails 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 snowbirds,
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 Mable,
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 snowfall,
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 the cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The sear 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.
Carrara is a beautiful white marble produced in Carrara, Italy.
Sweet Auburn was the name of a cemetery, and Blanch the little sister who died before Mabel was born. All early families had the hardship of losing family members.
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