A Snowstorm Out of the poised darkness while the wind, Half sob and half a whisper, records the night, The air is filled with genuflections of light: The snow, in all its nifty puffs, unpinned.

Each flake, a simple orb, comes rushing fast, As poet’s breath takes flight with every spell, A joke of wit employed where all may dwell, ‘Yonder diamond flecks past.’

In quietude, a solemn stillness there, Where night blankets in a dreamy lure, The snowflakes fall and with them carry prayer, A mantle soft for hearts that seek for sure.

This timeless hushed repose a world anew, Each flake a keeper of our hopes in gray, Thus, on the ground where all gives way today, The snow descends like grace—the heart is true.

• Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr