Amazed I looked 
out of the window and saw 
the early snow coming down casually, 
almost drifting, over 
the gardens, then the gardens began 
to vanish as each white, six-pointed 
snowflake lay down without a sound with all 
the others. I thought, how incredible 
were their numbers. I thought of dried 
leaves drifting spate after spate 
out of the forests, 
the fallen sparrows, the hairs of all our heads 
as, still, the snowflakes went on pouring softly through 
what had become dusk or anyway flung 
a veil over the sun. And I thought 
how not one looks like another 
though each is exquisite, fanciful, and 
falls without argument. It was now nearly 
evening. Some crows landed and tried 
to walk around then flew off. They were perhaps 
laughing in crow talk or anyway so it seemed, 
and I might have joined in, there was something 
that wonderful and refreshing 
about what was by then a confident white blanket 
carrying out its 
cheerfiul work, covering ruts, softening 
the earth?s trials, but at the same time 
there was some kind of almost sorrow that fell 
over me. It was 
the loneliness again. After all 
what is Nature, it isn?t 
kindness, it isn?t unkindness. And I turned 
and opened the door, and still the snow poured down, 
smelling of iron and the pale, vast eternal, and 
there it was, whether I was ready or not: 
the silence; the blank, white, glittering sublime.