"snow? in mid-Spring!"
its stay is short, but is felt
in the porter's bones.
Spring Snow [Haiku]
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Tag Archives: snow
“Excelsior” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]
The shades of night were falling fast,
As though an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped the groan,
Excelsior!
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!
"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell like a falling star,
Excelsior!
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Stony & Frozen [Free Verse]
Stony & Frozen:
and yet there's something
the mind loves about
snowcapped mountains.
Something calming --
Maybe it's their stillness.
Maybe it's a nature sync.
Maybe it's that one is in
a green pasture with a
pleasant breeze and
sun warming one's face
as one looks upon those
harsh and barren lands.
Maybe it's awe at the proximity
of the inhospitable -- the uninhabitable --
lands, lands that seem so close
to one's idyllically habitable lands.
(If owing more to their grandiosity
than true proximity.)
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Snowy Mountains [Haiku]
across the lake,
the snowy mountains stand
in denial of Spring.
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“Snowflakes” (45) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town --
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down --
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig --
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!
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Snowy Pass [Haiku]
the pass is snowy;
though low country types think it
the cusp of Summer.
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“Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change in mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
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Backdrop [Haiku]
a snowy mountain.
a church, broad-shouldered & bright,
looks cold & bantam.
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“The Snow Storm” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
No hawk hangs over in this air:
The urgent snow is everywhere.
The wing adroiter than a sail
Must lean away from such a gale,
Abandoning its straight intent,
Or else expose tough ligament
And tender flesh to what before
Meant dampened feathers, nothing more.
Forceless upon our backs there fall
Infrequent flakes hexagonal,
Devised in many a curious style
To charm our safety for a while,
Where close to earth like mice we go
Under the horizontal snow.
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“Snow-flakes” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]
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.
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