In the very thought of home there is an exhaustless well-spring of poetic feeling. The word itself is all alive with the spirit of sweet poesy which gives charm to the humblest verse; and it would be strange indeed if, in an idyl like “Snow-Bound,” there should not be found passages of real beauty, touches of nature that make the whole world kin. The subject is
one that readily lends itself to the lowly mood and unpretending style. Fine thoughts and ambitious words would but distract us. Each one is thinking of his own dear home, and he but asks the poet not to break the spell that has made him a child again; not to darken the dewy dawn of memory, that throws the light of heaven around a world that seemed as dead, but now lives.
“O Time and Change!—with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah! brother, only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now—
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.