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 side-walks , 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 snow-drifts . 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 hoarfrost 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 snow-flakes 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 XXXXX the room .
against among as at beneath into through to up with