| When men were all asleep the snow came flying, |
| In large white flakes falling on the city brown, |
| Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, |
| Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; |
| Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; |
| Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: |
| Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; |
| Hiding difference, making unevenness even, |
| Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. |
| All night it fell, and when full inches seven |
| It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, |
| The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; |
| And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness |
| Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: |
| The eye marvelled – marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; |
| The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; |
| No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, |
| And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. |
| Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, |
| They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze |
| Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing; |
| Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; |
| Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder!’ |
| ‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’ |
| With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, |
| Following along the white deserted way, |
| A country company long dispersed asunder: |
| When now already the sun, in pale display |
| Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below |
| His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. |
| For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; |
| And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, |
| Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: |
| But even for them awhile no cares encumber |
| Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, |
| The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber |
|
At the sight of the beauty that greets them,
for the charm they have broken.
|
