The Snow Storm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

    Come see the north wind's masonry. 
Out of an unseen quarry evermore 
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 
Curves his white bastions with projected roof 
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. 
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he 
For number or proportion. Mockingly, 
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; 
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; 
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, 
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate, 
A tapering turret overtops the work. 
And when his hours are numbered, and the world 
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, 
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, 
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, 
The frolic architecture of the snow.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American Transcendentalist essayist, philosopher, and poet 

(don't be bewildered)

don't be bewildered

by the cold weather!

dragonfly

--Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), Japanese poet and haiku master, written 1811, translated by David G. Lanoue

.うろたへな寒くなるとて赤蜻蛉
urotae na samuku naru tote aka tombo

Pray to What Earth

Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong, 
Which asks no duties and no conscience? 
The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path 
In some far summer stratum of the sky, 
While stars with their cold shine bedot her way. 
The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky, 
And far and near upon the leafless shrubs 
The snow dust still emits a silver light. 
Under the hedge, where drift banks are their screen, 
The titmice now pursue their downy dreams, 
As often in the sweltering summer nights 
The bee doth drop asleep in the flower cup, 
When evening overtakes him with his load. 
By the brooksides, in the still, genial night, 
The more adventurous wanderer may hear 
The crystals shoot and form, and winter slow 
Increase his rule by gentlest summer means. 

--Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American Transcendentalist thinker, author, essayist, and poet