Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Snow Storm

Lyrics

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, enclosеd In a tumultuous privacy of storm Come see the north wind's masonry Out of an unseen quarry evеrmore 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