So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,—
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendour, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.
A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse thrust his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornèd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.
All day the gusty north wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
Whittier: "Snow-bound."
THE HEROINE OF VERCHÈRES
Verchères was a fort on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, about twenty miles below Montreal. A strong block-house stood outside the fort, and was connected with it by a covered way. On the morning of the twenty-second of October, (1692) the inhabitants were at work in the fields, and nobody was left in the place but two soldiers, two boys, an old man of eighty, and a number of women and children. The commandant was on duty at Quebec; his wife was at Montreal; and their daughter, Madeline, fourteen years of age, was at the landing-place not far from the gate of the fort, with a man-servant.
Suddenly she heard firing from the direction where the settlers were at work, and an instant after the servant called out: "Run, miss!—run! here come the Indians!" She turned and saw forty or fifty of them at the distance of a pistol-shot. She ran to the fort as quickly as possible, while the bullets whistled about her ears, and made the time seem very long. As soon as she was near enough to be heard, she cried out: "To arms!—to arms!" hoping that somebody would come out and help her; but it was of no use. The two soldiers in the fort were so scared that they had hidden in the block-house.
When she had seen certain breaches in the palisade stopped, she went to the block-house, where the ammunition was kept; and there she found the two soldiers, one hiding in a corner, and the other with a lighted match in his hand.