Snow-Bound
Whittier's winter idyl of a New England farmhouse.
What this poem is
Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl is a long narrative poem by American poet John Greenleaf Whittier first published in 1866. The poem, presented as a series of stories told by a family amid a snowstorm, was extremely successful and popular in its time. The poem depicts a peaceful return to idealistic domesticity and rural life after the American Civil War.
The poem takes place in Whittier's childhood home, today known as the John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead, which still stands in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The poem chronicles a rural New England family as a snowstorm rages outside for three days. Stuck in their home for that period, the family members exchange stories by their roaring fire.
In a later edition's introduction, Whittier notes that the characters are based on his father, mother, brother, two sisters, an unmarried aunt and unmarried uncle, and the district schoolmaster who boarded at the homestead. The final guest in the poem was based on Harriet Livermore. The poem includes an epigraph quoting several lines from "The Snow-Storm" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article “Snow-Bound” (revision 1326533344), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Laurel's own notes and measurements are not from Wikipedia.
Measured across the book
Across its 765 lines, 96% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 95% to 97%). Alliteration runs at 1.10 times what shuffling the words would give (0.27 observed against 0.25 expected). 7% of the lines have a feminine ending.
Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.
Contents
About this text
Public domain. Text from Snow-bound, Project Gutenberg ebook #20226. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.