Part 5
Oh the long and dreary Winter! Oh the cold and cruel Winter! Ever thicker, thicker, thicker Froze the ice on lake and river; Ever deeper, deeper, deeper Fell the snow o’er all the landscape,— Fell the covering snow, and drifted Through the forest, round the village. Hardly from his buried wigwam Could the hunter force a passage; With his mittens and his snow-shoes Vainly walked he through the forest, Sought for bird or beast and found none,— Saw no track of deer or rabbit; In the snow beheld no foot-prints; In the ghastly gleaming forest Fell, and could not rise from weakness, Perished there from cold and hunger. Oh the famine and the fever! Oh the wasting of the famine! Oh the blasting of the fever! Oh the wailing of the children! Oh the anguish of the women! All the earth was sick and famished; Hungry was the air around them, Hungry was the sky above them, And the hungry stars in heaven, Like the eyes of wolves glared at them! Then they buried Minnehaha; In the snow a grave they made her, In the forest deep and darksome, Underneath the moaning hemlocks; Clothed her in her richest garments,— Wrapped her in her robes of ermine, Covered her with snow, like ermine; Thus they buried Minnehaha.
Longfellow.
_The Path through the Snow._
Bare and sunshiny, bright and bleak, Rounded cold as a dead maid’s cheek, Folded white as a sinner’s shroud, Or wandering angel’s robes of cloud,— Well I know, well I know, Over the fields the path through the snow.
Narrow and rough it lies between Wastes where the wind sweeps, biting keen; Every step of the slippery road Tracks where some weary foot has trod; Who will go, who will go, After the rest, on the path through the snow?
They who would tread it must walk alone, Silent and steadfast, one by one; Dearest to dearest can only say, “My heart! I’ll follow thee all the way, As we go, as we go, Each after each on this path through the snow.”
It may be under that western haze Lurks the omen of brighter days; That each sentinel tree is quivering Deep at its core with the sap of spring; And while we go, while we go, Green grass-blades pierce through the glittering snow.
It may be the unknown path will tend Never to any earthly end,— Die with the dying day obscure, And never lead to a human door; That none may know who did go Patiently once on this path through the snow.
No matter, no matter! the path shines plain; These pure snow-crystals will deaden pain; Above, like stars in the deep blue dark, Eyes that love us look down and mark. Let us go, let us go, Whither Heaven leads in the path through the snow!
Miss Muloch.
_December Snow._
Fall thickly on the rose-bush, O faintly falling snow! For she is gone who trained its branch, And wooed its bud to blow.
Cover the well-known pathway, O damp December snow! Her step no longer lingers there, When stars begin to glow.
Melt in the rapid river, O cold and cheerless snow! She sees no more its sudden wave, Nor hears its foaming flow.
Chill every song-bird’s music, O silent, sullen snow! I can not hear her loving voice, That lulled me long ago.
Sleep on the earth’s broad bosom, O weary winter snow! Its fragrant flowers and blithesome birds Should with its loved one go.
W. B. Glazier.
Beneficence
_The Rain cometh down and the Snow from heaven, and watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.—Isaiah 55:10._
The great design of the snow is benevolent. It is appointed to water the earth, but not like the rain. That comes down and produces its effects and passes away, and is absent just when the heat is at its hight, and evaporation most rapid. But the snow comes down in the winter, and lies upon the high mountain ranges all through the hottest weather, gradually supplying the streams and rivers on which human life depends. The great Father of Waters, our grand Mississippi, is a child of the snow; and often his waters swell when other streams are drying up. The very heat which is drinking up their waters is melting the snows on the Rocky Mountains, and replenishing his wasted bulk. The Nile is the child of snow; and its annual rise, on which the life of Egypt depends, is occasioned by its melting. The sun, approaching the summer solstice, finds the snows of the winter all treasured up for his magic touch to transform to water.
The snow tempers the heat of the atmosphere. And in this it has two opposite powers and offices. It heats and it cools. By being a non-conductor of heat, and at the same time translucent, it enables the Esquimaux to build his winter house entirely of its solid blocks; being the warmest substance for this purpose, in nature, so far as waste of heat is concerned, and at the same time serving the purpose of windows by transmitting the light in a broad mass into his humble dwelling. Animals live under its shelter in the severest cold. And the very earth is protected by it. Tender roots lie sheltered from the frosts by its thick covering. The winds that visit the south of India, our latitude, and Southern Europe, in summer, come across over the great snow tracts of the Himalaya, or the Alps, or the Rocky Mountains, charged with refreshing coolness.
And while its pure whiteness makes an agreeable change from the verdure of summer, it is admirably adapted to the various latitudes of the earth in modifying the light. The farther the sun withdraws from any part of the earth, the less light he emits there. And the snow follows him at respectful distance, increasing its bounty, as his rays diminish. The consequence is, our long winter nights are cheered by this brilliant covering that gathers and reflects all the scattered beams the sun has left. The long polar nights are not only illuminated, but also beautified by its wonderful phenomena.
Snow furnishes the most splendid material for road making. To it we owe the cheerful movement of the sleigh; and the lumbermen of our forests can do nothing until it has come to enable them to bring their timber to the streams.
Kirk.
* * * * *
But few of us at home can realize the protecting power of this warm coverlet of snow. No eider-down in the cradle of an infant is tucked in more kindly than the sleeping dress of Winter about this feeble flower-life. The first warm snows, falling on a thickly-pleached carpet of grasses, heaths, and willows, enshrine the flowery growths which nestle round them in a non-conducting air-chamber; and, as each successive snow increases the thickness of the cover, we have, before the intense cold of winter sets in, a light, cellular bed covered by drift, six, eight or ten feet deep, in which the plants retain their vitality.
The early spring and late fall and summer snows are more cellular and less condensed than the nearly impalpable powder of winter. The drifts, therefore, that accumulate during nine months of the year, are dispersed in well-defined layers of different density. We have first the warm cellular snows which surround the plant; next, the fine, impacted snow-dust of winter; and above these, the later, humid deposits of the spring.
It is interesting to observe the effects of this disposition of layers upon the safety of the vegetable growths below them. These, at least in the earliest summer, occupy the inclined slopes that face the sun, and the several strata of snow take, of course, the same inclination. The consequence is, that as the upper snow is dissipated by the early thawings, and sinks upon the more compact layer below, it is, to a great extent, arrested, and runs off like rain from a slope of clay. The plant reposes thus in its cellular bed, guarded from the rush of waters, and protected too from the nightly frosts by the icy roof above it.
Dr. Kane.
* * * * *
There is a pretty, curious old town in Germany. The streets are narrow and the houses very quaint, with their pointed, gable-ends toward the street. One house stands somewhat isolated from the rest. It is at an angle where two streets meet, and is built with so many projections and jutting windows and carved friezes that it is quite a study.
One cold, cold afternoon in midwinter, when the silent frost was penetrating every where, and men moved quickly, muffled up in furs,—a time for people to close their doors, and gather round their firesides,—all the quiet inhabitants were astir. There was a bustle of preparation in parlor and kitchen; and young and old, wrapping their garments about them, were ready to go out in the cold. There were dismay and confusion in all the streets. Why?
They had heard that the French regiment, called the Pitiless, on its retreat from Moscow, was only three leagues off, and was to quarter in their village that night. There was every thing to fear from the revelry and excesses of soldiers, who acknowledged no right but that of the strongest.
In the queer old house of which we have spoken, there was no bustle of preparation. By the fire, in a large old room, sat an aged woman and her two grandchildren. Unable from her lameness to leave home, her grandchildren would not forsake her. Her faith in God enabled her to feel that they might be safer there than when fleeing from danger.
“O God! till darkness goeth hence, Be thou our stay and our defense; A wall, when foes oppress us sore, To save and guard us evermore!”
These, the last notes of their evening hymn, died away amid the rafters of the shadowy room.
“Alas!” said the boy, mournfully, “we have no wall about us to-night to protect us from enemies.”
“He will be our Wall himself,” said the aged woman, reverently. “Think you his arm is shortened?”
“No, grandmother; but the thing is impossible without a miracle.”
“Take care, my boy; nothing is impossible with God. Hath he not said he will be a wall of fire unto his people? We must trust him and he will be our wall of defense.”
They sat quietly by the fireside. The wind moaned down the large open chimney, and the snow fell softly against the window-pane. Steadily it fell all night, and the wind drifted it in high banks, covering the shed, streets, walls, and paths of the silent and deserted town. And yet there was peace by that quiet fireside, the peace that can only be felt by the mind that is stayed on God. Few words were spoken. They held one another’s hands, and looked into the fire, and listened, in the pauses of the storm, to catch the blast of the French trumpets. At nine o’clock the sound was faintly borne to them on the breeze; a few hurried blasts swept past them, intermingled with sounds of trampling feet and loud voices, and all was still.
Their hearts beat almost audibly; and they drew closer together, as they felt that they were now in the midst of their enemies. Helpless age and defenseless youth! What armor had they wherein to trust? The shield of faith! and safely they rested beneath its shadow!
Every house was a scene of revelry. Great fires were kindled. Altars were ransacked. The soldiers, with their songs and wine-cups, their oaths and blasphemy, made the streets ring, striving to drown the remembrance of intense cold and terrible privation in those hours of drunken merriment.
Still the little group in the quaint old house sat peacefully through the long, long hours of the night, till morning dawned and showed them the wall of defense which God had built round about them. Exposed as was their house, from its position, to the eddies and currents of the wind, the snow had so drifted about them that the doors and windows were completely blocked up; and the French soldiers had not found it. With the daylight they had left the town.
Wind and storm had fulfilled God’s word, and encircled those who put their trust in him with a wall that protected them from their enemies,—a wall, not of fire, but of snow.
_Under the Snow._
Fall in your gleaming folds of white, And robe the mountain-crest with snow; Make each dark vale and hillside bright, Till all the earth is fair below!
Let all the forest oaks be clad,— The birch, and shivering aspen-tree, Nor fail to shroud the tender buds And roots of frail anemone!
Then fold them close and shield them well To guard against the winter’s cold; While fast yon snowy flakes descend And penetrate the frozen mold.
And we will sing, though wild the storm,— Sing in December as in May, Fill pledges from the icy brook, And all the year be glad and gay.
For when the winter solstice brings The Earth resplendent, like a bride, She, with her snowy coronal, Fulfills her promise, glorified!
Fulfills her promise, when the days And months have brought the circling year, When vernal woods and bursting buds And blue-eyed violets appear.
Faint type of what our hearts foretell, Of something glorious yet to be; The life for which our spirits thirst,— And hid from all eternity!
And most for thee, high Hope, and Faith, I languish. Oh, return to me! Come, fold me in thy heavenly robes, And mantle of sweet Charity.
And hide me from the outer world, And quicken to my inward sense The earnest of those heavenly joys, Till I, departing, shall go hence.
And through those clouded days and brief, To yonder heaven I lift my eyes; While, through life’s frost and over-growth, The violet of my heart shall rise,
Up to that flaming Soul of Love, Who makes with joy my soul to sing; And folds beneath the wintry snow The buds and garniture of spring.
S. D. C.
_Wild-Flowers._
We swept away the old sear leaves From off the wintry ground, And underneath the frozen snow The tiny buds we found, Just waiting for the beckoning nod Of sun and mellow air, To spring in beauty from the sod, And shed their fragrance there.
So under many a frozen heart, Where Hope lies chilled and dead, Beneath the tempest cares of life, Love’s precious buds lie hid; The smile of tender sympathy, The word of kindly cheer, Like the warm, sunny air of spring, Will make the flowers appear.
H. E. B.
_The Alpine Violet._
Mid Alpine wilds and thick-descending snows, Where massive hights uplift their towering crest, Adown whose rugged sides no verdure glows, And e’en a feathery flake could scarcely rest; Fearless alike of winter’s rudest shock, Impending glaciers, or the tempest wild, On the stern side of that cloud-piercing rock, A single violet looked up and smiled. Some might have said, ’twas “born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air;” But no! Heaven’s light shone in its humble mien, And He was pleased who placed the floweret there.
So I, a human flower, am bid to grow, Mayhap, in life’s most wild, sequestered spot, Where Sorrow’s rudest tempests fiercely blow, And woes accumulate o’ershade my lot. Yet even here, alone and sadly chilled, Nor known, nor noticed by the passing gaze, Like that lone violet, I too may yield To Heaven a silent offering of praise. Earth may not know that I have ever been; Yet pleasure to the eye of Heaven to give, And thence, one sweet, approving smile to win, Is, sure, no worthless mission to achieve.
Ib.
Instruction.
_Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. —Psalm 107: 43._
January! Darkness and light reign alike. Snow is on the frozen ground. Cold is in the air. The winter is blossoming in frost-flowers. Why is the ground hidden? Why is the earth white? So hath God wiped out the past: so hath he spread the earth, like an unwritten page, for a new year! Old sounds are silent in the forest and in the air. Insects are dead, birds are gone, leaves have perished, and all the foundations of soil remain. Upon this lies, white and tranquil, the emblem of newness and purity, the virgin robes of the yet unstained year!
April! The singing month. Many voices of many birds call for resurrection over the graves of flowers, and they come forth. Go, see what they have lost. What have ice and snow and storm done unto them? How did they fall into the earth stripped and bare? How do they come forth opening and glorified? Is it then so fearful a thing to lie in the grave?
In its wild career, shaking and scourged of storms through its orbit, the earth has scattered away no treasures. The hand that governs in April governed in January. You have not lost what God has only hidden. You lose nothing in struggle, in trial, in bitter distress. If called to shed thy joys as trees shed their leaves; if the affections be driven back into the heart, as the life of flowers to their roots, yet be patient. Thou shalt lift up thy leaf-covered boughs again. Thou shalt shoot forth from thy roots new flowers. Be patient! Wait!
Beecher.
* * * * *
The sun had gone down before we entered the valley of Chamouni; the sky behind the mountain was clear, and it seemed for a few moments as if darkness was rapidly coming on. On our right hand were black, jagged, furrowed walls of mountain, and on our left Mont Blanc, with his fields of glaciers and worlds of snow; they seemed to hem us in and almost press us down. But in a few moments commenced a scene of transfiguration, more glorious than any thing I had witnessed yet. The cold, white, dismal fields gradually changed into hues of the most beautiful rose-color. A bank of white clouds, which rested above the mountains, kindled and glowed, as if some spirit of light had entered into them. You did not lose your idea of the dazzling, spiritual whiteness of the snow, yet you seemed to see it through a rosy vail. The sharp edges of the glaciers and the hollows between the peaks reflected wavering tints of lilac and purple. The effect was solemn and spiritual beyond any thing I had ever seen. These words, which had often been in my mind during the day, and which occurred to me more often than any others while I was traveling through the Alps, came into my mind with a pomp and magnificence of meaning unknown before:—“For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”
In this dazzling revelation I saw not that cold, distant, unfeeling fate, or that crushing regularity of wisdom and power, which was all the ancient Greek or modern deist can behold in God; but I beheld, as it were, crowned and glorified, one who had loved with our loves, and suffered with our sufferings. Those shining snows were as his garments on the Mount of Transfiguration, and that serene and ineffable atmosphere of tenderness and beauty, which seemed to change these dreary deserts into worlds of heavenly light, was to me an image of the light shed by his eternal love on the sins and sorrows of time, and the dread abyss of eternity.
Sunny Memories.
* * * * *
It is painful to think how our youth are coming to maturity without looking into these Treasure Houses of the King. The Bible and nature are mutually illustrative. And he has not a full Christian nature, who can not profoundly read and intensely enjoy both. As one has said of the book of nature,—and it might equally have been said of the Book of grace;—“The casual and general observer of nature soon ceases to be interested, because he looks only at the surface, and soon exhausts all the novelties. He merely stands on the outside of the temple, and, after gazing for a time at its noble proportions and splendid columns, his interest subsides. But he who really studies the works of God because he loves them is admitted into the penetralia, and there ten thousand new objects reward his search, opening continually before him, until he reaches the very Holy of Holies, and becomes a consecrated Priest.” Education, then, consists in forming rather than in informing. Its two chief instruments are, not the wisdom of men, nor classical literature, but God’s works and God’s Book. Science without Revelation is of doubtful value. Revelation without Science is not seen in its fullness.
Let the snow-flake preach Sinai and Calvary, Eden and Gethsemane, the first and the second Adam. In its purity and beauty, its freshness and its bounty, it shows what a world this was when God made it. But when we see it rushing in the turbid stream, rolling in the dreadful avalanche, to bury the homes and possessions of men with their owners,—when we see it sullied and stained,—let us learn that man is fallen, that a curse is upon the earth and its lord, that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.”
Kirk.
_God in Nature._
What prodigies can Power divine perform More grand than it produces year by year, And all in sight of inattentive man! Familiar with the effect, we slight the cause, And in the constancy of Nature’s course, And regular return of genial months, And renovation of a faded world, See naught to wonder at. Should God again, As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race Of the undeviating and punctual sun, How would the world admire! But speaks it less An agency divine to make him know His moment when to sink and when to rise, Age after age, than to arrest his course? All we behold is miracle; but seen So duly, all is miracle in vain.
All this uniform uncolored scene Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load And flush into variety again. From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, Is Nature’s progress when she lectures man In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. The beauties of the wilderness are his, That make so gay the solitary place Where no eye sees them; and the fairer forms That cultivation glories in are his. He sets the bright procession on its way, And marshals all the order of the year: He marks the bounds which Winter may not pass And blunts its pointed fury; in its case, Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, Uninjured, with inimitable art; And, ere one flowering season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonder of the next.
Cowper.
_Teachings of Nature._