An early classification of snowflakes by Israel Perkins Warren (1814-1892) American Congregational minister, editor and author who lived in Connecticut and Maine.
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
“ Snow-Flakes,’’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). The Portland, Maine, native was the most revered American poet of his time as well as a famed professor and translator (most notably of Dante) at Harvard. His reputation, long in eclipse, has lately been in a revival.
Longfellow Square, with statue of the poet, circa 1906
