Many years ago, I read a rather silly newspaper article, the writer arguing that “today’s children” are going to grow up without ever knowing snow (except in faraway ski resorts, picture postcards and Hollywood movies?) The savage winter of 2010-11 was yet in the future – what a baptism of ice for these youths! – and we have not exactly been strangers to the white stuff, since. But it does seem that snowfalls grow ever and ever scarcer. Of course, geography plays a part: right now, I bask in the mild and palmy clime of the south, while somewhere up north, schools and businesses are shut or compromised in other ways because of the hazards that a heavy fall brings. February is deemed “snow month” for obvious reasons, the colder part of winter occurring following the return of the sun. And has it inspired poets?
Oh, my: what a wealth of wintry words our language affords. Take “Thy silvery form so soft and fair/ Shining through darkness” (
To a Wreath of Snow by Emily Bronte, 1818-1848) and “the sudden flurries of snow-birds, / Like brown leaves whirling by” (
The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891) and the darker tones of “a snow-blown traveller sank from sight beneath the smothering bank” (
Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl by John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892). Short of travelling abroad (and thus further exacerbating global warming) I believe it is just a question of awaiting a global temperature dip for the “white bees” (
The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, 1805-1875) to return and wreath us all in the cool stuff. Then once again, February will truly be snow month.
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