A POEM BEFORE BED

((I first posted this back in January 2011. With the "Blizzard of 2015"
raging outside right now, I thought I'd repost it.)) 


We're supposed to be getting a blizzard here tonight. I thought an
excerpt from cousin John Greenleaf Whittier's poem Snowbound
would be an apropos blogpost before I head off to bed:

"Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores."