WHEN THE SNOW CAME 



south or high or low the birches sang a 

 little silky song of snow and the pines 

 hummed or roared to the same refrain. 

 Then it came, " announced by all the 

 trumpets of the sky/' as Emerson says, 

 but muted trumpets that blared without 

 sound. The eyes saw the flourish of them, 

 the nose mayhap whiffed the rich odor of 

 the storm. You could see it in the sky 

 and feel the light touch of its unwonted 

 air on your cheek, but you could not say 

 that the wind blew north or blew south 

 when the culmination of signs made you 

 sure of it. The storm may bleat along 

 the hillside like a lost lamb or roar high 

 above in the clashings of the infinite 

 skies after it is well under way, but al- 

 ways before it begins is this little breath- 

 less pause between the dying of one wind 

 and the birth of another. 



So it was that the first of this snow 



