Lie all white and shrouded
Upon the world’s breast.
Thus, through several stanzas, he paints Nature in white, seemingly for the joy of the senses but really for ‘the inward soul.’ For a moment he obtrudes the ‘message’ which the snow conveys to the moral imagination—
Falling so slowly
Down from above,
So white, hushed and holy,
Folding the city
Like the great pity
Of God in his love;
Sent down out of heaven,