The Snow-Storm

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

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 farmhouse at the garden’s end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet

Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

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;

Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,

Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and at the gate

A tapering turret overtops the work.

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.