Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Элла Уилкокс)
The Snowflake
All sheltered by the mother-cloud
The little flake looked down;
It saw the city's seething crowd,
It saw the shining town.
"How fair and far those steeples rise
To greet us, mother dear!
It is so lovely in the skies,
Why do we linger here?
"The south wind says the merry earth
Is full of life and glow;
I long to mingle with its mirth--
O mother! let us go."
The mother-cloud reached out her arm,
"Oh, little flake," quoth she,
"The earth is full of sin and harm,
Bide here, bide here, with me."
But when the pale cloud-mother slept,
The north wind whispered "Fly!"
And from her couch the snowflake crept
And tiptoed down the sky.
Before the Winter's sun his fleet
Brief journey made that day,
All soiled and blackened in the street,
The little snowflake lay.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s other poems:
