Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year Part 25

SNOW-BOUND

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

Slow tracing down the thickening sky 5 Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set.

A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out-- 10

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, midvein, the circling race Of lifeblood in the sharpened face-- The coming of the snowstorm told.

The wind blew east; we heard the roar 5 Of ocean on his wintry sh.o.r.e, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly ch.o.r.es: Brought in the wood from out of doors, 10 Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's gra.s.s for the cows; Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows, 15 The cattle shake their walnut bows; While peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The c.o.c.k his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent. 20

Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made h.o.a.ry with the swarm And whirl dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag, wavering to and fro, 25 Crossed and recrossed the winged snow; And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window frame, And through the gla.s.s the clothesline posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 30

So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of nature's geometric signs, In starry flake and pellicle, 5 All day the h.o.a.ry meteor fell; And when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own.

Around the glistening wonder bent 10 The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below-- A universe of sky and snow!

The old familiar sights of ours Took marvelous shapes: strange domes and towers 15 Rose up where sty or corncrib stood, Or garden wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle post an old man sat, 20 With loose-flung coat and high c.o.c.ked hat; The well curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 25

All day the gusty north wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow mist shone.

No church bell lent its Christian tone 30 To the savage air; no social smoke

Curled over woods of snow-hung oak; A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements-- The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree boughs swaying blind, 5 And on the gla.s.s the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger tips of sleet.

--_Snow-Bound._

1. Outline, stanza by stanza, the story told. Who tells it? Where is the scene laid? How many days and nights are covered?

2. Compare this with the previous poem for clearness, pleasant sound, pictures shown, new ideas. Which do you like better? The last line of "The Snowstorm" interprets lines 14-25, page 197.

How?

3. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was born at Haverhill, Ma.s.sachusetts. _Snow-bound_, from which this extract is taken, gives a good description of his home and family. A great deal of his writing was done while editor of various magazines and newspapers. He was for a long time connected with the _Atlantic Monthly_. Many of his poems describe country life in New England; others retell old stories of pioneer days. He died at Amesbury, Ma.s.sachusetts.

TOM PINCH'S RIDE

BY CHARLES d.i.c.kENS

It was a charming evening, mild and bright. The four grays skimmed along, as if they liked it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was in as high spirits as the grays; the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice; the wheels hummed cheerfully in unison; the bra.s.s work on 5 the harness was an orchestra of little bells; and thus as they went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the leaders' coupling reins to the handle of the boot, was one great instrument of music.

Yo-ho! Past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages, and barns, and people going home from work. Yo-ho! Past donkey chaises drawn aside into the ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses whipped up at a bound upon the little watercourse and held by struggling carters close to 5 the five-barred gate until the coach had pa.s.sed the narrow turning in the road. Yo-ho! By churches dropped down by themselves in quiet nooks, with rustic burial grounds about them, where the graves are green and daisies sleep--for it is evening--on the bosoms of the dead. 10

Yo-ho! Past streams in which the cattle cool their feet, and where the rushes grow; past paddock fences, farms, and rickyards; past last year's stacks, cut slice by slice away, and showing in the waning light like ruined gables, old and brown. Yo-ho! Down the pebbly dip, and through 15 the merry water splash, and up at a canter to the level road again. Yo-ho! Yo-ho!

Yo-ho! Among the gathering shades, making of no account the reflection of the trees, but scampering on through light and darkness, all the same, as if the light of 20 London fifty miles away were quite enough to travel by, and some to spare. Now, with a clattering of hoofs and striking out of fiery sparks, across the old stone bridge, and down again into the shadowy road, and through the open gate, and far away, into the world. Yo-ho! 25

See the bright moon! High up before we know it, making the earth reflect the objects on its breast like water--hedges, trees, low cottages, church steeples, blighted stumps, and flourishing young slips, have all grown vain upon a sudden, and mean to contemplate their own fair images till 30 morning. The poplars yonder rustle, that their quivering leaves may see themselves upon the ground. Not so the oak; trembling does not become him; and he watches himself in his stout old burly steadfastness without the motion of a twig.

The moss-grown gate, ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled and decayed, swings to and fro before its gla.s.s 5 like some fantastic dowager: while our own ghostly likeness travels on, through ditch and brake, upon the plowed land and the smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall, as if it were a phantom hunter.

Yo-ho! Why, now we travel like the moon herself. 10 Hiding this minute in a grove of trees; next minute in a patch of vapor; emerging now upon our broad, clear course; withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey is a counterpart of hers. Yo-ho! A match against the moon.

The beauty of the night is hardly felt when day comes 15 leaping up. Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to a continuous street. Yo-ho! Past market gardens, rows of houses, villas, crescents, terraces, and squares, and in among the rattling pavements. Yo-ho!

Down countless turnings, and through countless mazy 20 ways, until an old innyard is gained, and Tom Pinch, getting down quite stunned and giddy, is in London.

"Five minutes before the time, too!" said the driver, as he received his fee from Tom.

--_Martin Chuzzlewit._

1. Tom Pinch traveled by the fast night coach to London, in the days before railroads. Tell what he saw, and make sketches.

2. Explain: grays, boot, yo-ho, chaises, paddock, dowager, rickyards, brake, crescents.

3. Charles d.i.c.kens (1812-1870), an English novelist, is famous for his humor and for the marvelous characters he has created. Many of his books attack or laugh at abuses and prejudices of his time.

ODE TO A b.u.t.tERFLY

BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

The poet watches the b.u.t.terfly and speaks to it, guessing in a fanciful way at its origin, commenting on its way of life, and thinking of the symbolic meaning that people in all ages have a.s.sociated with it.

Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold, Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds, With nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words, Yet dear to every child 5 In glad pursuit beguiled, Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!

Thou winged blossom, liberated thing, What secret tie binds thee to other flowers, Still held within the garden's fostering? 10 Will they too soar with the completed hours, Take flight, and be like thee Irrevocably free, Hovering at will o'er their parental bowers?

Or is thy l.u.s.ter drawn from heavenly hues-- 15 A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky, Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues With sudden splendor, and the treetops high Grasp that swift blazonry, Then lend those tints to thee, 20 On thee to float a few short hours, and die?

Birds have their nests; they rear their eager young, And flit on errands all the livelong day; Each field mouse keeps the homestead whence it sprung; But thou art nature's freeman--free to stray Unfettered through the wood, 5 Seeking thine airy food, The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.

The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee, O daintiest reveler of the joyous earth!

One drop of honey gives satiety; 10 A second draft would drug thee past all mirth.

Thy feast no orgy shows; Thy calm eyes never close, Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives birth.

And yet the soul of man upon thy wings 15 Forever soars in aspiration; thou His emblem of the new career that springs When death's arrest bids all his spirit bow.

He seeks his hope in thee Of immortality. 20 Symbol of life, me with such faith endow!

1. What color was the b.u.t.terfly that the poet watched? What does he imagine it to be in the second stanza? In the third? What does he say about its habits in the fourth stanza? In the fifth?