Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl

John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl” (1866) is the poet’s first-person recollection of a massive two-day blizzard that socked in his family farm near the coastal Massachusetts village of Haverhill when the poet was only 10. Published when Whittier was approaching 60, the nearly 800-line poem captures with both idealistic and sentimental nostalgia the essence of New England rural life threatened by the onrush of industrialization. Crafted in carefully metered couplets that give the poem its music when recited aloud, the poem reflects Whittier’s respect for British Neo-Classical and Romantic poetry with their emphasis on using poetry as a vehicle for philosophical inquiry. Whittier identified with the mid-19th century school of New England poets known collectively as the Fireside Poets (because their works were recited by families gathered in their parlors). They were also known as the Schoolhouse Poets because their works were memorized and recited by a generation of American schoolchildren. Whittier here uses the narrative frame of family and friends marooned in the farmhouse while the storm howls outside to investigate themes of the unstoppable movement of time, the power of nature, and the consolations of memory.