Читать книгу By Scarlet Torch and Blade - Anthony Henderson Euwer - Страница 6

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I’m glad I’m not in town today For townfolk always have a way Of hating snow—they stamp it off Their feet and shake their clothes and cough And fume and curse it every time It comes. It seems a crime To say you love it when it snows— Down in the town. Yet I suppose They’re not to blame—it always brings A peck of ills and heartache things Down in the town. There’s such A lot of misery—so much That sleeps along until the touch Of snow and cold wakes it again To sudden pain. You really can’t blame folks a bit For hating snow and cursing it The way they do Down in the town—it’s natural to.

In great cascades of blinding white Shot through with light Of morning suns.

But here—up here, it’s driving white Across the gray tree-trunks; all night It fell and laid one blanket more Upon the store We had. And I am glad, For here—up here, it’s not a crime To love the snow in winter-time.

It’s hip-deep in the clover-field Behind the barn—the woods there shield The sun. I took a jog On show-shoes with the dog Across the ditch that marks the clover’s edge Into a straggling hedge Of saplings—only yesterday they were So cocky and so straight—each baby-fir A prickly little grenadier; and now— How vanquished! Every bough Limp, beaten, crushed, as if The snow had said—“Oh stiff And upright little tree How much of me Do you suppose your arms will hold?” To which the tree made answer bold— “I am a young and husky fir— All you can give, I’ll hold, Good Sir!” A rather glib and short Retort, At which the snow was somewhat stirred, He took the sapling at his word! For so it looked, the way the snow Had laid them low, Swamped to their ears, Those prickly little grenadiers.

That’s what it is to be so small And near the ground, but when you’re grand and tall You shake your boughs and let it fall In great cascades of blinding white, Shot through with light Or morning suns—spray after spray. The gray boles sway With every windy gust that breaks To dust and flakes The tumbling clumps, Baptizing brush and stumps And huge-heaped logs—a deluge, white And dazzling bright.

And still it snows, And blows Across the orchards in big drifts; But for the sunbursts through the rifts Of cloud today, It’s never quit. And when it goes away— This snow up here, it will be free from blame For it will leave in beauty as it came. The sun will loosen all the bonds That bind the baby-sapling’s fronds Close to the ground, And they’ll rebound. The ice-locked creek will show its green And swirling eddies in between The marble bridges flung across Its twisted banks of moss.

Each day will see new colors peep; Gray bark and green—the deep Rich sheen of laurels—short, stalky grapes, Stiff, jagged, red—and twisted shapes Of leaves turned russet, shrivelled, sere— Still dangling from the stems of the dead year— All penciled bold against the bright, Cold snow, like patterns on a page of spotless white. And each new day will leave some strange, Blue arabesque upon the eastern range, Drag streaks of ochre down the fields, and shade The purple brush-lands deeper where they fade Off to the west, and pools of melting snow will hold The winter evening sun’s last splash of gold.

These are the things God keeps in store For us up here, when in a few days more, This snow—that’s driving hard today, Will melt away.