class="line">To keep a little while alive--

THE SNOW

Just as the school came out,

The first white flakes were drifting round about:

And all the children shouted with delight

To see such flakes, so big, so white,

Tumbling from a cloud so black,

And whirling helter-skelter

Across the windy moor:

And as they saw the light flakes race,

Started off in headlong chase,

Swooping on them with a shout,

When they seemed to drop for shelter

Underneath the dry-stone wall.

And then the master, at the schoolhouse door,

Called out to them to hurry home, before

The storm should come on worse: and watched till all

Had started off by road or moorland track:

When, turning to his wife, he said:

It looked like dirty weather overhead:

He thought 'twould be a heavy fall,

And threatened for a roughish night;

But they would all reach home in broad daylight.

'Twas early, yet; he'd let the school out soon;

As it had looked so lowering since forenoon;

And many had a goodish step to go:

And it was but ill-travelling in the snow.

Then by the fire he settled down to read;

And to the weather paid no further heed.

And, on their road home, full three miles away,

John, and his little sister, Janey, started;

And, at the setting out, were happy-hearted

To be let loose into a world so gay,

With jolly winds and frisking flakes at play

That flicked your cheek, and whistled in your teeth:

And now hard on each other's heels they darted

To catch a flake that floated like a feather,

Then dropt to nestle in a clump of heather;

And often tumbled both together

Into a deep delicious bed

Of brown and springy heath.

But, when the sky grew blacker overhead,

As if it were the coming on of night,

And every little hill, well-known to sight,

Looked big and strange in its new fleece of white;

And as yet faster and more thickly

The big flakes fell,

To John the thought came that it might be well

To hurry home; so, striding on before,

He set a steady face across the moor;

And called to Janey she must come more quickly.

The wind soon dropped: and fine and dry the snow

Came whispering down about them, as they trudged

And, when they'd travelled for a mile or so,

They found it ankle-deep: for here the storm

Had started long before it reached the school:

And, as he felt the dry flakes tingling warm

Upon his cheek, and set him all aglow,

John in his manly pride, a little grudged

That now and then he had to wait awhile

For Janey, lagging like a little fool:

But, when they'd covered near another mile

Through that bewildering white without a sound,

Save rustling, rustling, rustling all around;

And all his well-known world, so queer and dim,

He waited until she caught up to him;

And felt quite glad that he was not alone.

And when they reached the low, half-buried stone

That marked where some old shepherd had been found,

Lost in the snow in seeking his lost sheep,

One wild March night, full forty years ago,

He wished, and wished, that they were safe and sound

In their own house: and as the snow got deeper,

And every little bank seemed strangely steeper,

He thought, and thought of that lost sleeper;

And saw him lying in the snow,

Till every fleecy clump of heath

Seemed to shroud a man beneath;

And now his blood went hot and cold

Through very fear of that dread sight;

And then he felt that, in sheer fright,

He must take to his heels in flight,

He cared not whither, so that it might be

Where there were no more bundles, cold and white,

Like sheeted bodies, plain to see.

And, all on edge, he turned to chide

His sister, dragging at his side:

But, when he found that she was crying,

Because her feet and hands were cold,

He quite forgot to scold:

And spoke kind words of cheer to her:

And saw no more dead shepherds lying

In any snowy clump of heather.

So, hand in hand, they trudged together,

Through that strange world of drifting gloam,

Sharp-set and longing sore for home.

And John remembered how that morning,

When they set out the sky was blue--

Clean, cloudless blue; and gave no