Summary: What darker?<br> -The Voice before the Void<br> “The Snow-Shower”<br> William Cullen Bryant<br> Stand here by my side and turn, I pray,<br> On the lake below, thy gentle eyes;<br> The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,<br> And dark and silent the water lies;<br> And out of that frozen mist the snow<br> In wavering flakes begins to flow;<br> Flake after flake<br> They sink in the dark and silent lake.<br> See how in a living swarm they come<br> From the chambers beyond that misty veil;<br> Some hover awhile in air, and some<br> Rush prone from the sky like summer hail.<br> All, dropping swiftly or settling slow,<br> Meet, and are still in the depths below;<br> Flake after flake<br> Dissolved in the dark and silent lake.<br> Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud,<br> Come floating downward in airy play,<br> Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd<br> That whiten by night the milky way;<br> There broader and burlier masses fall;<br> The sullen water buries them all–<br> Flake after flake–<br> All drowned in the dark and silent lake.<br> And some, as on tender wings they glide<br> From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray,<br> Are joined in their fall, and, side by side,<br> Come clinging along their unsteady way;<br> As friend with friend, or husband with wife,<br> Makes hand in hand the passage of life;<br> Each mated flake<br> Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake.<br> Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste<br> Stream down the snows, till the air is white,<br> As, myriads by myriads madly chased,<br> They fling themselves from their shadowy height.<br> The fair, frail creatures of middle sky,<br> What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;<br> Flake after flake,<br> To lie in the dark and silent lake!<br> I see in thy gentle eyes a tear;<br> They turn to me in sorrowful thought;<br> Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear,<br> Who were for a time, and now are not;<br> Like these fair children of cloud and frost,<br> That glisten a moment and then are lost,<br> Flake after flake–<br> All lost in the dark and silent lake.<br> Yet look again, for the clouds divide;<br> A gleam of blue on the water lies;<br> And far away, on the mountain-side,<br> A sunbeam falls from the opening skies,<br> But the hurrying host that flew between<br> The cloud and the water, no more is seen;<br> Flake after flake,<br> At rest in the dark and silent lake.<br>
