The
poem Cam Taylor recites throughout the
story is called “The First Snowfall” by James Russell Lowell, an American poet
born in Massachusetts in 1819. The son of a minister, Lowell was a Harvard Law
School graduate who was an ardent abolitionist. He eventually taught literature
at Harvard, a small part of his colorful life. Read more about him here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/james-russell-lowell
The First Snowfall
The
snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had
been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every
pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And
the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
From
sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow,
The
stiff rails were softened to swan’s-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.
I
stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And
the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I
thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How
the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up
spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?”
And I
told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.
Again
I looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That
arched o’er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.
I
remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud-like snow,
Flake
by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our deep-plunged woe.
And
again to the child I whispered,
“The snow that husheth all,
Darling,
the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!”
Then,
with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That
my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
