Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the lightsifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

III. THE OUTER WORLD AGAIN
Next morn we wakened with the shout
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,

Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes

From lip to lip; the younger folks

Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,

At every house a new recruit,

Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-balls' compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm which Eden never lost.

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound;

And, following where the teamsters led,

The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,

In the brief autocratic way

Of one who, prompt at Duty's call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,

That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother's aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer's sight
The Quaker matron's inward light,

The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect

The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on a week had passed Since the great world was heard from last. The Almanac we studied o'er,

Read and reread our little store

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,

A single book was all we had,)

Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse,

A stranger to the heathen Nine,

Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.

At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.

Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread;
In panoramic length unrolled

We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
And daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica's everglades.
And up Taygetus winding slow

Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks,
A Turk's head at each saddle bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding knell and dirge of death;
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,

The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow

Was melted in the genial glow;

Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

HELPS TO STUDY

This poem, one of the very best things in our American literature, was written in 1866, when Whittier was nearly sixty years old. His youngest sister had just died, the last of the family except the poet and his brother. It was natural, therefore, that his thoughts should go back to their childhood, when the family circle was unbroken. It was written not so much to describe the snowstorm, beautiful as that is, as to describe the life and spirit of the family circle which the snowstorm held together by the fireside. The character of this family is the character of the best New England people, the English stock that gave New England the fine and strong influence it had and still has on our civilization.

5

10

15

The old farmhouse is still standing near the village of Amesbury, Mass., and many people visit it to satisfy a worthy curiosity and to pay honor to the poet who made it famous.

8. How

I. 1. Read carefully the first paragraph, on the coming of the snowstorm. Use your knowledge of grammar here; make sure you get the proper subjects for the verbs gave (line 3), and told (line 14). 2. To what noun do the pronouns in lines 6 and 8 refer? 3. With what is the noun portent in apposition? 4. In line 9 a relative pronoun is omitted; supply it. 5. The wind" blew east"; as it came from the ocean, what must this mean? 6. What were the "chores that a New England farm boy had to do? 7. The cattle in the barn stood by stanchions (poles fastened in floor and ceiling), and were tied to them by U-shaped yokes or bows and chains. These yokes were made of oak, or elm, or hickory. When Whittier says 'walnut," he means hickory; many New Englanders still call hickory "walnut." did the snow fall: slow or fast, large or small? In what shapes? Compare Longfellow's "The Snowfall" and Emerson's The Snowstorm." 9. How was the world changed next morning? 10. A well sweep is a long pole used to lift the bucket of water up from the well. It swings on a pivot, with the longer arm reaching up ten feet or more; hence it reminded the poet of the leaning tower of Pisa (Pē’zä). 11. Describe the cutting of paths. What did the tunnel make the boys think of? 12. What was the outside world like on this second day? 13. How long did the snowfall continue? See line 12, page 253, and line 10, page 254. 14. Select words and phrases that seem to you particularly good; such, for example, as "thickening sky," "hard, dull bitterness of cold," querulous challenge." The poem is full of good things of this sort.

II. 1. Explain "beat the frost-line back." 2. What picture can you see just in front of the fire? 3. Who does Whittier say are left of that family circle? 4. Where does he express the hope that they will meet again? 5. Commit to memory some of the best parts of the paragraph, beginning "What matter how the night behaved?" 6. Explain lines 17-21, page 256. 7. What stories and experiences