Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Last line of the poem

"Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl" is a lengthy poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, dedicated by the poet to "the memory of the household it describes." As the title suggests, it is concerned with an occasion when snow came to the household, and then details the various tasks the family undertook together to clear paths in the snow before retiring to tell ghost stories around the hearth as the snow grew thicker. The poet then goes on to dwell upon the theme of memory and reminiscing, describing how the various members of his family remain with him despite being long gone. The final line of the poem, however, marks a return to its first ostensible subject: that of the snowstorm itself, an idyl beyond which nothing seemed to exist for this family, despite the hardships they otherwise suffered due to "Slavery's shaping hand." The poem concludes by describing how a "traveller" in memory, a friend of the poet, might "pausing, take with forehead bare/The benediction of the air"—suggesting that moments of stillness, such as the pause during a snowstorm, are what allow us to feel blessed, and are the moments we later dwell upon in memory.
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/whitt02.html

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