BEAUTIFUL SNOW
In
the early part of the Civil War, one dark Saturday morning in the dead of
winter, a young woman, twenty-two years old, died at the Commercial Hospital,
Cincinnati. She had once been beautiful and the pride of respectable parents. Highly
educated and accomplished, she might have shone in the best society. But she
was stubborn and willful and would not listen to warning. She played with fire
and called it “fun.” One day she awoke to find herself ruined by a fatal
mistake which she could not erase. She was fallen.
She
spent the rest of her young life in disgrace and shame, and died poor and
friendless, a broken-hearted outcast. Among her personal effects was found in
manuscript, the poem, “Beautiful Snow” which was immediately carried to
Enos B. Reed, editor of the National Union. In the columns of that paper, on
the morning following the girl’s death, the poem appeared in print for the
first time. When the paper containing the poem came out on Sunday morning, the
body of the victim had not yet received burial. The attention of Thomas
Buchanan Read, one of the first American poets, was soon directed to the newly
published lines, and was so taken with their stirring pathos, that he
immediately followed the corpse to its final resting place.
Such
are the facts concerning her whose “Beautiful Snow” will be long
regarded as one of the brightest gems in American literature.
Oh! The snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and earth below,
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you
meet.
Dancing~Flirting~Skimming along,
Beautiful snow, it can do no wrong.
Clinging to lips in frolicsome
freak,
Trying to kiss a fair lady’s cheek,
Beautiful snow from heaven above,
Pure as an angel, gentle as love.
Oh! The snow, the beautiful snow,
How the flakes gather and laugh as
they go,
Whirling about in maddening fun,
Cheering the heart and dispelling
the gloom.
Chasing~Laughing~Hurrying by,
It lightens the face and sparkles
the eye.
Rollicking dogs with a bark and a
bound,
Snap at the crystals which eddy
around.
The town is alive and its heart in a
glow,
To welcome the coming of beautiful
snow!
How wildly the crowd goes swaying
along,
Hailing each other with humor and
song,
How gay are the sleighs, like the
stars flashing by
Are bright for a moment, then lost
to the eye.
Ringing~Swinging~Dashing they go,
Over the crest of the beautiful
snow,
Snow that’s so pure when it falls
from the sky,
That it makes one regret that it’s fated
to lie
And be trampled and muddied by
thousands of feet,
‘Till it blends with the horrible
filth of the street.
Once I was pure as the snow, but I
fell,
Fell like the snowflakes from heaven
to hell;
Fell to be trampled as filth of the
street,
Fell to be scoffed at, to be spit on
and beat,
Pleading~Cursing~Dreading to die,
Selling my soul to whoever would
buy,
Dealing in shame for a morsel of
bread,
Hating the living and fearing the
dead.
Merciful God! have I fallen so low?
And yet I was once like the
beautiful snow.
Once I was fair as the beautiful
snow,
With an eye like a crystal, a heart
like its glow,
Once I was loved for my innocent
grace,
Flattered and sought for the charms
of my face.
Father~Mother~Sisters~all,
God and myself I have lost by my
fall.
The vilest wretch that goes
shivering by,
Will make a wide sweep lest I wander
too nigh;
For all that is on or above me, I
know
There is nothing so pure as the
beautiful snow.
How strange it should be that this
beautiful snow,
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere
to go!
How strange it should be when the
night comes again;
If the snow and the ice struck my
desperate brain.
Fainting~Freezing~Dying alone,
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for
a moan,
To be heard in the streets of the
crazy town,
Gone mad in the joy of the snow
coming down!
To be and to die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the
beautiful snow.
Hopeless and foul as the trampled
snow,
Sinner, despair not, Christ stoopeth
low,
To rescue the soul that is lost in
sin,
And to raise it to life and
enjoyment again,
Groaning~Bleeding~Dying for thee,
The Crucified hung on the cursed
tree,
His accents of mercy fall soft on
thine ear.
“Is there mercy for me? Will he heed
my weak prayer?
O God! in the stream that for
sinners did flow,
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than
snow.”
GOD SAYS:
“Come
now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall
be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
“All
we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)
“…the
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1st John 1:7b)
“…for
it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” (Leviticus 17:11b)
“Lord
Jesus Christ, please change my heart for my eternal good. Please create within
me a heart repentant toward Thee for all my sins. Please forgive me of all my
sins and wash me clean in Thy Precious Blood that Thou didst shed for me on the
cross. Please grant me true faith in my Creator God to fully believe in Thee
and to fully trust in Thee, Lord Jesus, as my Lord, my God, my Saviour, my
First and Foremost Love, my ALL. Thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for hearing this
prayer of mine. Amen!”
(Most of the time, we have BEAUTIFUL SNOW available
in tract form.) Ask for it from:
CHRIST IS ALL
PO Box 490
Vernon, Alabama 35592
USA