John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem is a series of portraits of family members, people who love each other. They’re New England folk and are cooped up together by a storm. No one seems to mind.
You can get a sense of Whittier’s skill — the consensus is that it’s limited — as he sets the scene:
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his sleepy head.
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s silhouette on the wall.
The lines don’t grab me, but I stay to take in the scene: Cider simmers by the andirons in the fireplace. Nuts are in the basket. The family members pass the time talking. Mother tells of an old Indian attack
And how here own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
We meet the uncle who is “innocent of books” but knows the woods. We get a look at the household’s meager library, pamphlets mostly, with one novel that’s hidden from the kids.
It’s a big deal when a carrier comes through the snow with the weekly newspaper.
The highlight — a modest one — is when mother pauses
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and wealth,
And loves contentment, more than wealth.
The Boston Atheneum’s article on Whittier says that when he died, The Atlantic published a long article on him by George Edward Woodberry.
Woodberry’s take on Whittier: “The secret of his vogue with the plain people is his own plainness."
That seems right.
If I were asked to cite examples of well made lines of poetry, my first thought would not be of Whittier. But he notices the details of ordinary life. His poem takes me away from one world to another for a short while, and I always enjoy my visit. I’ll come back again.
• Sources: John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl” is on Poetry Foundation’s site:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45490/snow-bound-a-winter-idyl
Carley Stevens, “John Greenleaf Whittier”; Boston Atheneum, Nov. 20, 2019. The article is here:
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