English poem
The Snow Is Here
by Douglas Malloch (1877–1938)
The snow is here. I heard it in the night Upon the roof in marshaled measure tramp. The passing year Has changed the world to white And set the seal of Winter on the camp. But yesterday A footpath down the hill Touched hands with other roads that led afar; But now the way Is hidden ’neath the chill Of diamonded drifts that glisten like the star. We are shut in From ev’ry distant thing, That other life amid the world of men, From dirt and din, Until returning Spring Shall find the road and waken us again.
The chore-boy now His frosted finger blows And makes his path from islanded door to door; Like sturdy prow He parts the billowed snows And heaps his brands of comfort on the floor. The fire he plies With piles of pitchy pine Until the flames roar upward in a gale; And we arise To breathe the wintry wine, To plunge abroad and icy tasks assail. So breaks the day; So comes the arctic dawn In this our little world when snow is here; And so away The months shall follow on Till softer skies shall mark another year.
The horses stamp In clouds of steamy smoke, The teamster’s voice of mastery await; Their bits they champ And shake their leather yoke-- And life breaks forth where life is isolate. Now from the wood, The timber on the hill, Comes stroke of ax and sawyer’s steady swing; The tree that stood Beside the frozen rill In powdered snow to earth comes thundering. Thus passes day With shout and merry call, With echoed blow and crosscut’s swishy sweep, Until the gray Of eve envelopes all And drives us back to shelter and to sleep.
Though this our life, A rugged life and plain, Of sudden danger and of slow reward, The wind a knife, A scimitar of pain, With death to fight and frosty stream to ford, Though chill the way, Laborious the toil, Though rough the fare, the habitation rude, Though skies be gray, Though stubborn be the soil, And even day a night of solitude-- We fondly know, We know, in other years When we shall look again on sunny seas, This land of snow Shall rise from out our tears And dearest seem of all our memories.