"Snow-Flakes"

The Academy of American Poets sent a very nice poem along with their season's greetings.  It's just too perfect; I hope they don't mind if I share it as well:

"Snow-Flakes"

Out of the bosom of the Air,
     Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
     Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
        Silent, and soft, and slow
        Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
    In the white countenance confession,
        The troubled sky reveals
        The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
        Now whispered and revealed
        To wood and field.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings, Library of America, 2000.

As it so happened, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1835) was the first book Harper ever published.

Comments

[JanePoe (aka Deborah)]

J'adore the sensual nature of this poem. JP/deb