BEAUTIFUL SNOW
[These verses were found, after death, in the desk of a girl
of twenty‑two, highly educated, accomplished, and beautiful, but whose
life was one frightful fall. She wrote them where she died‑in the
Oh! the snow,
the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and earth below,
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of people you meet;
Dancing Flirting - Skimming along!
Beautiful snow! it
can do no wrong;
Flying to kiss a fair ladys cheek,
Clinging to lips in frolicsome freak;
Beautiful snow from heaven above,
Pure as an angel, gentle as love!
Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow,
How the flakes gather and laugh as they
go.
Whirling about in maddening fun;
Chasing Laughing - Hurrying by,
It lights on the face and it sparkles the eye;
And the frisking dogs with a bark and
a bound
Snap at the crystals as they eddy
around;
The town is alive, and its heart is
aglow,
To welcome the coming of beautiful
snow!
How wild the crowd goes swaying along,
Hailing each other with humour and
song;
How the gay sleighs like meteors flash
by,
Bright for a moment, then lost to the
eye;
Ringing Swinging - Dashing they go,
Over the crest of the beautiful snow;
Snow so pure when it falls from the
sky,
To be trampled and tracked by
thousands of feet
Till it blends with the filth in the
horrible street.
Once I was pure as the snow, but I
fell,
Fell like the snow flakes from heaven
to hell;
Fell to be trampled as filth in the
street,
Fell to be scoffed, to be spit on and
beat;
Pleading Cursing - Dreading to die,
Selling my soul to whoever would buy,
Dealing in shame for a morsel of
bread,
Hating the living and fearing the
dead.
Merciful God! have
I fallen so low!
And yet I was once like the beautiful
snow.
Once I was fair as the beautiful snow,
With an eye like a crystal, a heart like its glow;
Once I was loved for my innocent grace
-
Flatterd and sought for the charms of my face!
Fathers Mothers Sisters - all,
God and myself I have lost by my fall;
The veriest
wretch that goes shivering by
Will make a wide sweep lest I wander
too nigh;
For all that is on or above me, I
know,
There is nothing so
pure as the beautiful snow.
How strange should it be that this
beautiful snow,
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere
to go!
How strange it should be, when the
night comes again;
If the snow and the ice struck my
desperate brain.
Fainting Freezing Dying - Alone,
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for a
moan,
To be heard in the streets of the
crazy town,
Gone mad in the joy of snow coming
down;
To be and to die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the
beautiful snow.
Helpless and foul as the trampled
snow,
Sinner, despair not! Christ stoopeth low
To rescue the soul that
is lost in sin,
And raise
it to life and enjoyment again.
Groaning Bleeding Dying for thee,
The Crucified on the cursed tree!
His accents of mercy fall soft on thine
ear.
Is there mercy for me? Will He heed my weak prayer?
0 God! in the
stream that for sinners did flow
Wash me,
and I shall be whiter than snow.
-------
AFTERWARD
Had all my years been sinless, could I know
What my Lord means by His made white
as snow?
If all my days were tearless, could I say,
In His fair land He wipes all my tears away?
If I were never weary, could I keep
Close to my heart He gives His loved ones sleep?
Were no graves mine, might I not come to deem
The life eternal but a baseless dream?
My sorrow, yea, my tears, my weariness,
Even my graves shall be His way to bless:
I call them ills; yet that can surely be
Nothing but good that brings my Lord to me.