1. The first stanza describes the effect of the storm on people. Who are some of those inconvenienced?
2. In the remainder of the poem, the storm is thought of as an architect. What words describe him and his work? Why is he "myriad-handed?" Explain windward; mauger; "Parian wreaths." Why is the storm said to use the last mockingly? What other fanciful or mischievous things does the storm do?
3. Express in your own words the idea in lines 3-8, page 195. Compare the work of human builders with the work of the storm.
4. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American essayist, poet, and philosopher. He lived at Concord, Massachusetts.
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 shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did our nightly chores: Brought in the wood from out of doors, 10 Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's grass 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 cock 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 hoary with the swarm And whirl dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag, wavering to and fro, 25 Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow; And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window frame, And through the glass 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 hoary 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!