Part 8 (2/2)
Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,-- A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden-wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-flung coat and high c.o.c.ked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle.”
Again the fireside joy is expressed:--
”Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it pa.s.sed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed, The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet, The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row, And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood.
”What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.”
If these pa.s.sages and others in ”Snow-Bound” are familiar to the children in previous study, the reading of Emerson's ”The Snow-Storm,”
might set them to recalling a whole series of pictures from Whittier:--
”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, 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.”
The architecture of the snow can be compared point by point in both authors, in the objects about the farmhouse, while the picture of the snug comforts of the fireplace is in both.
Of a somewhat different, yet closely related, character is the description in the Prelude to Part Second, in the ”Vision of Sir Launfal”:--
”Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand summers old; On open wold and hill-top bleak It had gathered all the cold, And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; It carried a s.h.i.+ver everywhere From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof 'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams; Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of heaven to s.h.i.+ne through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And hung them thickly with diamond drops, Which crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one: No mortal builder's most rare device Could match this winter-palace of ice; 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day, Each flitting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost.
”Within the hall are the song and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With the lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind; And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer.”
The elfin builders of the frost have raised even more delicate structures than the snow. The descriptive power of the poets in picturing nature's handiwork cannot be better seen than in these pa.s.sages. It is hardly worth while to suggest the points of resemblance which children will quickly detect in these pa.s.sages, as the comparison of--
”Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide,”
with this,--
”The merrier up its roaring draught.
The great throat of the chimney laughed.”
Such pa.s.sages, suggesting like thoughts in earlier studies, are very frequent and spring up in unexpected quarters.
For example, Emerson, in ”Waldeinsamkeit,” says:--
”I do not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; The forest is my loyal friend, Like G.o.d it useth me.”
Again, in the ”Apology,” he says:--
<script>