February 5, 2010
Washington, DC
View from my bus stop after the last round of snow in metro DC.
Here in Washington, DC, we’re preparing for snow. As I ponder a weekend spent indoors with a lovely pile of books (thank goodness I’m not in charge of shoveling!), how fortuitous to stumble upon this quote by Edith Wharton.
The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield . . .It was one of the days when the glitter of winter shines . . . .
What are your favorite literary quotes about snow or other seasonal weather? (And don’t forget to visit The Big Read calendar to find out where there’s some Big Reading taking place near you.)
THE SNOW MAN
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
- Wallace Stevens
Whose woods these are I think I know;
His house is in the village, though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch the woods fill up with snow.
My litte horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The coldest evening of the year.
“Stopping By woods On a Snowy Day” is how Father taught me AABA / BBCB — the rhyme scheme most conducive to oral recitation, as the third line gets you ready for the second stanza…
This favorite Christmas hymn, a poem by Christina Rossetti, hung above our family’s piano for as long as I can remember.
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.
I really loved reading the above. I don’t have anything to add to the poems I just wanted to comment that I love snow and I love poetry. Really nice post.
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