Feb 22, 2008 11:49 am US/Eastern
February 22 Weather Trivia Answer
Correct Answer: d) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Longfellow grew up in Portland, Maine and spent the last 45 years
of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts where his home is a National Historic
Site.
He was the most popular poet of his day. He was such an admired figure in
the United States during his life that his 70th birthday in 1877 took on the air
of a national holiday, with parades, speeches, and the reading of his poetry. He
had become one of the first American celebrities.
His work was immensely popular
during his time and is still today, although some modern critics consider him
too sentimental. His poetry is based on familiar and easily understood themes
with simple, clear, and flowing language.
The lines are from his poem called "Snowflakes". Here is the
rest of it:
Out of the bosom of the air.
Out of the cloud-folds of her
garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the
harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the
snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine
expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance
confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This
is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered
and revealed
To wood and field.
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