SILVER FIELDS 



After many downfalls of snow by night and day, 

 everything of lesser height and sheer uprightness 

 than buildings and trees is buried in universal 

 whiteness. Sometimes the snow flutters down 

 and silently alights like immense flocks of birds. 

 At other times it descends as silently, but like 

 the continuous falling of a gray veil shutting one 

 in from all the world lying farther away than his 

 nearest outbuildings. Another snowfall comes 

 blown by howling winds in long slants to the earth 

 and whirled and tossed along the fields blurring 

 their surface in a frozen crust. 



Then comes a day when the wind quits buffet- 

 ing the snow from this side and that and stands 

 still, debating which way it shall blow next, while 

 the sun burns into the cold blue sky's eastern rim, 

 runs its short course over the dazzling northern 

 fields, and burns its way out behind the glorified 

 western mountains. When the sun is highest the 

 air bites cheeks and nose and fingers with a sharp 

 chill, and one feels its teeth gnawing his toes 

 through his boots if he does not bestir them. At 

 nightfall the smoke of the chimneys leans toward 

 the North Star and by the next morning the wind 

 comes roaring up from the south, armed with 



