SNOW-BOUND

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892), the Quaker poet of New England, ranks among the most famous of American verse writers.

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,

The bull's-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;

Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid

The work aside, her steps she stayed

One moment, seeking to express

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Her grateful sense of happiness

For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love's contentment more than wealth,

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O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tossed,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snowflakes fall,
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

Next morn we wakened with the shout
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptossed,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.

Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
Then toiled again the cavalcade

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,

At every house a new recruit.

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So days went on a week had passed

Since the great world was heard from last.

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The Almanac we studied o'er,

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Read and reread our little store

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;

One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid;
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.

Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;

Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Abridged from Snow-Bound

embargo: a government order forbidding the departure of ships.

POETRY

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894) was a distinguished author and physician. For fifty years he held his place as the poet and wit of Boston, and was admired by readers on both sides of the Atlantic.

NOTE. In The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table Dr. Holmes puts forth in 5 an informal and delightful fashion his views on a large variety of subjects.

I liked the turn the conversation had taken, for I had some things I wanted to say, and so, after waiting a minute, I began again:

I don't think the poems I read you sometimes can be 10 fairly appreciated, given to you as they are in the green state. You don't know what I mean by the "green state"? Well, then, I will tell you. Certain things are good for nothing until they have been kept a long while and used. Of these I will name three, meerschaum pipes, violins, 15 and poems. The meerschaum comes to us without complexion or flavor, born of the sea foam, like Aphrodite, but colorless as pallida Mors herself. The fire is lighted in its central shrine, and gradually the juices which the broad leaves of the Great Vegetable had sucked up from 20 an acre and curdled into a drachm are diffused through its thirsting pores. First a discoloration, then a stain, and at last a rich, glowing umber tint spreading over the whole surface. Nature, true to her old brown, autumnal

hue, you see, as true in the fire of the meerschaum as in the sunshine of October!

Don't think I use a meerschaum myself, for I do not, and I do not advise you, young man, even if my illustration strike your fancy, to consecrate the flower of your life 5 to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let me assure you, the stain of a reverie-breeding narcotic may strike deeper than you think. I have seen the green leaf of early promise grow brown before its time under such Nicotian regimen, and thought the umbered meerschaum was dearly bought 10 at the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will enslaved.

Violins, too, the sweet old Amati!-the divine Stradivarius! Played on by ancient maestros until the bow hand lost its power and the flying fingers stiffened. Bequeathed to the passionate young enthusiast who made it 15 whisper his inarticulate longings, and wail his monotonous despair. Passed from his dying hand to the cold virtuoso, who let it slumber in its case for a generation, till, when his hoard was broken up, it came forth once more and rode the stormy symphonies of royal orchestras, beneath 20 the rushing bow of their lord and leader. Into lonely prisons with improvident artists; into convents from which arose, day and night, the holy hymns with which its tones were blended; and back again to orgies in which it learned to howl and laugh as if a legion of devils were 25 shut up in it; then again to the gentle dilettante who calmed it down with easy melodies until it answered him