Poetry & Analysis
Classic Poems About Snowy Hills
Nature PoemsThe 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 farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller 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.
Overview Short Summary
A snowstorm hides hills, roads, woods, and buildings, stopping travel and enclosing a household by the fire. Overnight, the wind builds extravagant white shapes that human architecture can only imitate slowly.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Nature as creator: Wind and snow become an architect and builder.
- Isolation: The storm closes roads and separates friends.
- Wild beauty: The snow’s work is both savage and artistically precise.
Literary Technique Extended Metaphor
The storm is described through the language of masonry and architecture: quarry, tile, bastions, roof, turret, and structures. This extended metaphor presents winter as a powerful artist working without plans or limits.
To a Wreath of Snow
O transient voyager of heaven!
O silent sign of winter skies!
What adverse wind thy sail has driven
To dungeons where a prisoner lies?
Methinks the hands that shut the sun
So sternly from this morning’s brow
Might still their rebel task have done
And checked a thing so frail as thou.
They would have done it had they known
The talisman that dwelt in thee,
For all the suns that ever shone
Have never been so kind to me!
For many a week, and many a day
My heart was weighed with sinking gloom
When morning rose in mourning grey
And faintly lit my prison room
But angel like, when I awoke,
Thy silvery form so soft and fair
Shining through darkness, sweetly spoke
Of cloudy skies and mountains bare;
The dearest to a mountaineer
Who, all life long has loved the snow
That crowned her native summits drear,
Better, than greenest plains below.
And voiceless, soulless, messenger
Thy presence waked a thrilling tone
That comforts me while thou art here
And will sustain when thou art gone
Overview Short Summary
A prisoner receives a fragile wreath of snow that awakens memories of bare mountains and snow-covered native summits. The winter token gives comfort where sunlight has failed.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Love of mountain landscapes: Snowy summits remain emotionally dearer than greener plains.
- Homesickness: A small natural object reconnects the speaker with a lost homeland.
- Comfort in confinement: Memory offers freedom when the body cannot escape.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- The wreath of snow: A brief messenger from the outdoor world and the speaker’s mountain home.
- The prison room: Both literal confinement and emotional separation.
- Mountain summits: Freedom, identity, and remembered belonging.
Summer Morn in New Hampshire
All yesterday it poured, and all night long
I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat
Upon the shingled roof like a weird song,
Upon the grass like running children’s feet.
And down the mountains by the dark cloud kissed,
Like a strange shape in filmy veiling dressed,
Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist,
And nestled soft against the earth’s wet breast.
But lo, there was a miracle at dawn!
The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,
The sun a sheet of gold bequeathed the lawn,
The songsters twittered in the rustling trees.
And all things were transfigured in the day,
But me whom radiant beauty could not move;
For you, more wonderful, were far away,
And I was blind with hunger for your love.
Overview Short Summary
After a sleepless night of rain, mist descends the mountains and dawn transforms the landscape with breeze, sunlight, and birdsong. Yet the speaker remains unmoved because the person he loves is absent.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Mountain sunrise: Dawn turns a wet, mist-covered landscape into gold.
- Love and absence: Natural beauty cannot replace the missing beloved.
- Transformation: The world changes overnight, while the speaker’s longing remains.
Literary Technique Imagery and Contrast
The poem moves from beating rain and ghostlike mist to golden sunlight and birdsong. The bright external transformation contrasts with the speaker’s unchanged inner darkness.
Moonrise
I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning:
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle,
Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless,
Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain;
A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quit utterly.
This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker wakes in the pale midsummer morning and sees a thin moon withdrawing behind the dark mountain Maenefa. The unexpected sight gently separates him from sleep.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Unexpected wonder: The scene is valuable precisely because it arrives unsought.
- Threshold between sleep and waking: The speaker experiences the landscape in a dreamlike state.
- Mountain and sky: The dark mountain gives shape and contrast to the fading moon.
Literary Technique Imagery and Sound
The moon is compared to a fingernail and a pared piece of heavenly fruit. Dense alliteration and unusual verbs slow the reader, reproducing the effort of noticing a delicate sight while waking.
If Spirits Walk
“I have heard (but not believed) the spirits of the dead
May walk again.”
Winter’s Tale
If spirits walk, Love, when the night climbs slow
The slant footpath where we were wont to go,
Be sure that I shall take the self-same way
To the hill-crest, and shoreward, down the gray,
Sheer, gravelled slope, where vetches straggling grow.
Look for me not when gusts of winter blow,
When at thy pane beat hands of sleet and snow;
I would not come thy dear eyes to affray,
If spirits walk.
But when, in June, the pines are whispering low,
And when their breath plays with thy bright hair so
As some one’s fingers once were used to play—
That hour when birds leave song, and children pray,
Keep the old tryst, sweetheart, and thou shalt know
If spirits walk.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker imagines returning after death along a familiar hill path. She would not appear during a frightening winter storm, but in the gentle hour when June pines whisper and evening becomes quiet.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Love beyond death: Affection continues through memory and imagined return.
- Shared mountain paths: The hill-crest preserves the history of a relationship.
- Gentle remembrance: The speaker chooses a peaceful summer presence rather than a fearful haunting.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The poem is tender, wistful, and quietly supernatural. Its summer pines, evening prayer, and remembered touch make it suitable for readers seeking reflective funeral poems for someone who loved hills or mountains.
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