The First Snowfall

I know this wasn't our first snowfall, but it brought our first snow delay and made me rather pensive.

The First Snow-Fall

By James Russell Lowell

THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,           

  And busily all the night           

Had been heaping field and highway           

  With a silence deep and white.           

Every pine and fir and hemlock

  Wore ermine too dear for an earl,           

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree           

  Was ridged inch deep with pearl.           

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara           

  Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow,

The stiff rails softened to swan’s-down,           

  And still fluttered down the snow.           

I stood and watched by the window           

  The noiseless work of the sky,           

And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,

  Like brown leaves whirling by.           

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn           

  Where a little headstone stood;           

How the flakes were folding it gently,           

  As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,           

  Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?”           

And I told of the good All-father           

  Who cares for us here below.           

Again I looked at the snow-fall,

  And thought of the leaden sky           

That arched o’er our first great sorrow,           

  When that mound was heaped so high.           

I remembered the gradual patience           

  That fell from that cloud like snow,

Flake by flake, healing and hiding           

  The scar that renewed our woe.           

And again to the child I whispered,           

  “The snow that husheth all,           

Darling, the merciful Father

  Alone can make it fall!”           

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;           

  And she, kissing back, could not know           

That my kiss was given to her sister,           

  Folded close under deepening snow.