There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning , and through the partially-frosted window-panes I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm . A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air and hover downward with uncertain flight , now almost alighting on the earth , now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere . These are not the big flakes heavy with moisture which melt as they touch the ground and are portentous of a soaking rain . It is to be in good earnest a wintry storm . The two or three people visible on the sidewalks have an aspect of endurance , a blue-nosed , frosty fortitude , which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day . By nightfall -- or , at least , before the sun sheds another glimmering smile upon us -- the street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snowdrifts . The soil , already frozen for weeks past , is prepared to sustain whatever burden may be laid upon it , and to a Northern eye the landscape will lose its melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own when Mother Earth , like her children , shall have put on the fleecy garb of her winter 's wear . The cloud-spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle . As yet , indeed , there is barely a rime like hoar-frost over the brown surface of the street ; the withered green of the grass-plat is still discernible , and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look gray instead of black . All the snow that has yet fallen within the circumference of my view , were it heaped up together , would hardly equal the hillock of a grave . Thus gradually by silent and stealthy influences are great changes wrought . These little snow-particles which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls through the air will bury the great Earth under their accumulated mass , nor permit her to behold her sister Sky again for dreary months . We likewise shall lose sight of our mother 's familiar visage , and must content ourselves with looking heavenward the oftener . Now , leaving the Storm to do his appointed office , let us sit down , pen in hand , by our fireside . Gloomy as it may seem , there is an influence productive of cheerfulness and favorable to imaginative thought in the atmosphere of a snowy day . The native of a Southern clime may woo the Muse beneath the heavy shade of summer foliage reclining on banks of turf , while the sound of singing-birds and warbling rivulets chimes in with the music of his soul . In our brief summer I do not think , but only exist in the vague enjoyment of a dream . My hour of inspiration -- if that hour ever comes -- is when the green log hisses upon the hearth , and the bright flame , brighter for the gloom of the chamber , rustles high up the chimney , and the coals drop tinkling down among the growing heaps of ashes . When the casement rattles in the gust and the snowflakes or the sleety raindrops pelt hard against the window-panes , then I spread out my sheet of paper with the certainty that thoughts and fancies will gleam forth upon it like stars at twilight or like violets in May , perhaps to fade as soon . However transitory their glow , they at least shine amid the darksome shadow which the clouds of the outward sky fling through the room .
Blessed , therefore , and reverently welcomed by me , her true-born son , be New England 's winter , which makes us one and all the nurslings of the XXXXX and sings a familiar lullaby even in the wildest shriek of the December blast .
Earth bleakness casement hillock months singing-birds snow-particles storm twilight window-panes