Country Diary of a Lady: 12/13/2013

We got more snow last night.  Woke up to another inch or so of the fine white powder covering my steps.  A gray day, sky covered in clouds.  The paper wasp nest hanging in the tree near the craft shop has a "beehive" made out of snow.  Everything is still and quiet today.  No wind disturbs the tips of the pines, with their laden branches.

Here are some poems and quotes about Snow.

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening:
"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

~Robert Frost

“You should see my corgis at sunset in the snow. It's their finest hour. About five o'clock they glow like copper. Then they come in and lie in front of the fire like a string of sausages.”
― Tasha Tudor, The Private World of Tasha Tudor  

L. The Snow.

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, --
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem, --
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, --
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.
~Emily Dickinson

“At Tara in this fateful hour,
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place,
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness!” 

~Madeleine L'Enlge "A Swiftly Tilting Planet"

 “I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass  

“It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”
― A.A. Milne 

 “So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit