Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow the snow-storm. - The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems)

Return to Title Page for The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Literature

the snow-storm. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems) [1909]

Edition used:

The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909).

Part of: The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. (Fireside Edition).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


the snow-storm.

    • 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.
    • 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, nought 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.