The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

Snowing and blowing, roaring and rattle,
Frost, snow, and wind are all busy at battle!
O what a quaking, and shaking, and calling,
Whitely, so whitely, the snow still is falling;
Stone-dead the earth is, shrouded all over,
White, stiff, and hard is the snow-sheet above her,
Deep, deep the drift is; and tho' it is snowing,
Blacker, yet blacker, the heavens are growing.

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Oh, what a night! gather nearer the fire!
Pile the warm pine-logs higher and higher;
Shut the black storm out, close tight the shutters,
Hark! how without there it moans and it mutters,
Tearing with teeth, claws, and fingers tremendous,
Roof, wall, and gable!—now Angels defend us!
There was a roar!—how it crashes and darkens!
No wonder that Phœbe stops, trembles, and hearkens.

For black as the skies are, tho' hueless and ghastly,
Stretches the wold, 'mid the snow falling fastly,
Here in the homestead by Phœbe made cosy,
All is so pleasant, so ruddy, and rosy.
All by herself in the tile-paven kitchen,
In white huswife's gown, and in apron bewitching,
Flits little Phœbe, so busily making
Corn bread and rye bread for Saturday's baking.
See! in the firelight that round her is gleaming,
How she is glowing, and glancing, and beaming,
While all around her, in sheer perspiration
Of an ecstatic and warm admiration,
Plates, cups, and dishes, delightedly glowing,
Watch her sweet shade as 'tis coming and going,
Catch her bright image as lightly she passes,
Shine it about in plates, dishes, and glasses!
Often in wonder all trembling and quaking,
To feel how the homestead is swaying and shaking,
All in a clatter they cry out together,
‘The roof will be off in a minute! What weather!’

. . . . A face in the darkness, a foot on the Snow,
I it there? Dost thou hear? Doth it come? Doth it go?
Hush! only the gusts as they gather and grow.
O Phœbe is busy!—with little flour'd fingers,
Like rosebuds in snow, o'er her labour she lingers;
And oft when the tumult is loudest she listens,
Her eyes are intent, and her pretty face glistens
So warm in the firelight. Despite the storm's crying,
Sound, sound in their slumbers the farm-maids are lying;
The clock with its round face perspiring and blinking,
Is pointing to bed-time, and sleepily winking.
The sheep-dog lies basking, the grey cat is purring,
Only the tempest is crying and stirring.
The minutes creep on, and the wind still is busy,
And Phœbe still hearkens, perplex'd, and uneasy.

. . . . A face in the wold where the snowdrift lies low.
A footfall by night?—or the winds as they blow?
O hush! it comes nearer, a foot on the Snow.

Phœbe's fond heart is beginning to flutter,
She harks for a footfall, a tap on the shutter;
She lists for a voice while the storm gathers shriller,
The drift's at the door, and the frost groweth chiller.
She looks at the clock, and she starteth back sighing,
While the cuckoo leaps out from his hole in it, crying
His name ten times over; past ten, little singer!
‘O what keeps Eureka? and where can he linger?’
The snow is so deep, and the ways are so dire,
She thinks; and a footfall comes nigher and nigher.

. . . . A face in the darkness, a face full of woe,
A face and a footfall—they come and they go,

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Still nearer and nearer—a foot on the Snow!

Eureka's abroad in the town,—but 'tis later
Than Drowsietown's bed-time. Still greater and greater
The fears of poor Phœbe each moment are growing;
And sadder and paler her features are glowing.
She steps to the door—lifts the latch—with wild scolding
The door is dashed open, and torn from her holding,
While shivering she peers on the blackness, vibrating
With a trouble of whiteness within it pulsating!
The wind piles the drift at the threshold before her,
The snow swarms upon her, around her, and o'er her,
But melts on the warmth of her face and her hands.
A moment in trouble she hearkens and stands.

All black and all still, save the storm's wild tabor!
And she closes the door, and comes back to her labour.
In vain—she grows paler—her heart sinks within her,
The cuckoo bursts out in a flutter (the sinner),
And chimes the half-hour—she sits now awaiting,
Her heart forebodes evil, her mind still debating;
The drift is so deep—could a false step within it
Have led to his grave in one terrible minute?
Could his foot have gone wand'ring away in the wold there,
While frozen and feeble he sank in the cold there?
'Tis his foot! . . . Nay, not yet! . . . There he's tapping, to summon
His wife to the door! Nay, indeed, little woman!.
'Tis his foot at the door!—and he listens to hear her!
Nay, not yet; yet a footfall there is, coming nearer.

A face in the darkness, a foot on the Snow,
Nearer it comes to the warm window-glow;
O hush! thro' the wind, a foot-fall on the Snow.

Now heark, Phœbe, heark!—But she hearks not; for dreaming,
Her soft eyes are fixed on the fire's rosy gleaming;
Hands crossed on her knees she rocks to and fro;
O heark! Phœbe, heark! 'tis a foot on the Snow.
O heark! Phœbe, heark! and flit over the floor,
'Tis a foot on the Snow! 'tis a tap at the door!
Low, faint as hail tapping. . . Upstarting, she hearkens.
It ceases. The firelight sinks low, the room darkens.
She listens again. All is still. The wind blowing,
The thrill of the tempest, the sound of the snowing.
Hush again! something taps—a low murmur is heard.
‘Come in,’ Phœbe cries; but the latch is not stirred.

Her heart's failing fast; superstitious and mute
She stands and she trembles, and stirs not a foot.
She hears a low breathing, a moaning, a knock,
Between the wind's cry and the tick of the clock:
Tap! tap! . . with an effort she shakes off her fear,
Makes one step to the door; again pauses to hear.
The latch stirs; in terror and desperate haste
She opens the door, shrinking back pallidfaced,
And sees at the porch, with a thrill of affright,
'Mid the gleaming of snow and the darkness of night,
A shape like a Woman's, a tremulous form

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White with the snow-flakes and bent with the storm!
Great eyes looking out through a black tatter'd hood,
With a gleam of wild sorrow that thrills through the blood,
A hand that outreaches, a voice sadly strung,
That speaks to her soul in some mystical tongue!

The face in the darkness, the foot on the Snow,
They have come, they are here, with their weal and their woe:
O long was the journey! the wayfarer slow!

Now Phœbe hath courage, for plainly the being
She looks on is mortal, though wild to the seeing—
Tall, spectral, and strange, yet in sorrow so human—
And the eyes, though so wild, are the eyes of a woman.
Her face is all hid; but her brow and her hands,
And the quaint ancient cloak that she wears as she stands,
Are those of the red race who still wander scatter'd—
The gipsies of white towns, dishonour'd, drink-shatter'd.
And strange, too, she seems by her tongue; yet her words are
As liquid and soft as the notes of a bird are.
All this in a moment sees Phœbe; then lo!
She sees the shape staggering in from the snow,
Revealing, as in to the fire-gleam she goes,
A face wild with famine, and haggard with woes,
For her hood falls away, and her head glimmers bare,
And loosen'd around falls her dank dripping hair,
And her eyes gleam like death—she would fall to the earth,
But the soft little hands of kind Phœbe reach forth,
And lead her, half swooning, half conscious, until
She sinks in a chair by the fire and is still;
Still, death-like,—while Phœbe kneels down by her chair,
And chafes her chill hands with a motherly care.

The face is upon her, it gleams in the glow,
She hears a voice warning, still dreadful and low,
Far back lies the footprint, a track in the Snow.

The woman was ghost-like, yet wondrously fair
Through the gray cloud of famine, the dews of despair,
Her face hunger'd forth—'twas a red woman's face,
Without the sunk eyeball, the taint of the race;
With strange gentle lines round the mouth of her, cast
By moments of being too blissful to last.
Her cloak fallen wide, as she sat there distraught,
Revealed a strange garment with figures enwrought
In silk and old beads—it had once been most bright—
But frayed with long wearing by day and by night.
Mocassins she wore, and they, too, had been gay,
And now they were ragged and rent by the way;
And bare to the cold was one foot, soft and red,
And frozen felt both, and one trickled and bled.

The face of the stranger, 'tis worn with its woe,
It comes to thee, Phœbe, but when shall it go?
Far back go the footprints; see! black in the Snow.

But look! what is that? lo! it lies on her breast,
A small living creature, an infant at rest!
So tiny, so shrivell'd, a mite of red clay,
Warm, mummied, and wrapt in the Indian way.
It opens its eyes, and it shrivels red cheeks;
It thrusts out its hand to the face, and it speaks

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With a cry to the heart of the mother; and lo!
She stirs from her swoon, and her famish'd cheeks glow,
She rolls her wild eyes at the cry of distress,
And her weak hands instinctively open her dress
That the babe may be fed; and the touch of the child
When it comes to her bosom, warm, milky, and mild,
Seems blissful—she smiles—O, so faintly! —is blest
To feel its lips draw at the poor weary breast.
She closes her eyes, she is soothed, and her form
Within the great firelight grows happy and warm.
She hears not the wind, and she seems in a dream,
Till her orbs startle open amid the glad gleam;
Her looks fall on Phœbe, who trembles for pity;
She holds out her hands with a cry of entreaty;
Her thoughts flow together—she knows the bright place,
She feels the sweet firelight, she sees the kind face—
For Phœbe unloosens her poor dripping cloak,
And its damp rises up in the kitchen like smoke;
And Phœbe, with tender and matronly grace,
Is wiping the snow and the wet from her face.
She looks, sinks again, speaks with quick birdlike cries,
In her own thrilling speech; but her voice breaks and dies,
And her tears, through shut eyelids, ooze slowly and blindly
On the white little hands that are touching her kindly.

A face in the darkness, a face full of woe,
Deep, deep, are the white ways, and bleak the winds blow;
O, long was the journey, the wayfarer slow,
O, look! black as death, stretch the prints in the Snow.