It Snows

Look out here, my little one!
Greybeard Winter has begun
Noiseless work for noisy fun.
See the white and silent snow
Through the gray air falling slow,
Feathery soft as if some bird
Shook it from her wings, unheard.
All the little twigs grow full, 
Rounded as with fleecy wool.
Hay-ricks now are turned to tents;
All the stakes along the fence 
Have great soldier-caps of fur, 
Like white clouds of gossamer.
Into marble changes all 
The old barnyard's granite wall:
Even the pen where piggies snore
Has its marble roof and floor.

Bare trees now are blooming white;
All dead leaves are out of sight;
Gray and old the pine-woods grow,
And their branches droop with snow 
Till they touch the shrubs below, 
Making dusky rooms green-lined,
Such as rabbits love to find.

Now the nimble snow-bird comes
Round the door to gather crumbs;
Fearless of the frosty air,
Happy, though the fields are bare 
Where he feeds from withered weeds
That hold up their tiny seeds
To his busy bill; but now 
They are lost below the snow 
That makes all we look at change
Into figures new and strange.

Fling him out your crumbled cake, 
For his true heart's merry-make, 
And for that good faith in him, 
That, when all the world is dim, 
Somehow knows some Being large
Has his little life in charge, 
Caring for him just the same 
As for us who know His name.