Home → Take Heart → A Maine Poem
Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Snow-Flakes
Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate
Maine’s Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who wrote affirmative poems about historical events such as Paul Revere’s ride, also wrote dark lyrics derived from personal experience. In this example, he links a first snowfall to despair.
Snow-Flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. This poem is in the public domain. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Special Consultant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
