Chapter 129 of 129
LESSON CXXI.
Sanders' Union Fourth Reader Embracing a Full Exposition of the Principles of Rhetorical Reading; with Numerous Exercises for Practice, Both in Prose and Poetry, Various in Style, and Carefully Adapted to the Purposes of Teaching in Schools of Every Grade · Charles W. (Charles Walton) Sanders
THE LOST ONE'S LAMENT.
1. Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and earth below;
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along!
Beautiful snow! it can do no wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek,
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak,
Beautiful snow from the Heaven above,
Pure as an angel, gentle as love!
2. Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow,
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go?
Whirling about in its maddening fun,
It plays in its glee with every one;
Chasing,
Laughing,
Hurrying by,
It lights on the face and it sparkles the eye!
And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around.
The town is alive, and its heart in a glow
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow.
3. How wild the crowd goes swaying along,
Hailing each other with humor and song!
How the gay sledges, like meteors, flash by,
Bright for the moment, then lost to the eye!
Ringing,
Swinging,
Dashing they go
Over the crust of the beautiful snow;
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,
To be trampled in mud by the crowd rushing by,
To be trampled and tracked by thousands of feet,
Till it blends with the filth in the horrible street
4. How strange it should be that this beautiful snow,
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it should be, when the night comes again
If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain!
Fainting,
Freezing,
Dying alone,
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for a moan
To be heard in the crazy town,
Gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down;
To lie and so die, in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow!