The Blizzard

A poem

The snow since night has fallen hard,
To blanket road, roof, wall, and yard;
The snow ’til night shall come on down,
The earth a bride, the snow her gown.

Outside the wind it howls and blows —
The storm meaner, meaner grows! —
While we encircled are round the fire,
Heedless of snow fast inching higher.

The flames before our eyes do dance,
But do not cast a dumbing trance;
Unlike the screen that dully flickers,
The fire makes the mind move quicker.

By its motion we spy such dreams
That the world at large quite seems
To melt away, and we soon find
We’ve left the glooming storm behind.

For each one bends an ear to hear
A story that enchants and cheers,
And each one does a poem recite
To make the darkness lovely bright.

West keep its desert, south its sun,
We’ll take a blizzard in New England,
When by the hearth we snugly stay,
As imagination roams so far away.