THE SNOW-STORM 



BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 

 Arrives the snow ; and, driving o'er the fields, 

 Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited air 

 Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 

 And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 



Come see the north-wind's masonry! 

 Out of an unseen quarry, evermore 

 Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 

 Curves his white bastions with projected roof 

 Round every windward stake or tree or door ; 

 Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 

 So fanciful, so savage ; naught cares he 

 For number or proportion. Mockingly, 

 On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ; 

 A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn ; 



And when his hours are numbered, and the world 

 Is all his own, retiring as he were not, 

 Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 

 To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, 

 Built in an age, the mad wind's night- work, 

 The frolic architecture of the snow. 



