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of the young, we are more inclined to think of him as not enjoying the situation but as getting over the hill at a shuffling pace, hands deep in overcoat pockets, shoulders up, and ears tucked under coat collar.
In the second stanza he hurries our fancy off through a stretch of woods—somewhere—and makes a remark to the effect that sunbeams are gladdening those solitudes, if it is not very warm. In the next there is a glimpse of a dead oak, with icicles hanging to its branches, and we are reminded that the vine twisted around it's trunk was beautiful in summer when the wind blew soft and warm. In the following stanza is seen a party of skaters:
"Alas! how changed from the fair scene
When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft and woods were green. "
In the last stanza he says it is not so bad:
- * Wild music is abroad.
Pale desert woods!"
and in a little apostrophe to the
"Chill airs and wintry winds"
he professes to like their sound. And he did enjoy it, for about the same reason that his Teutonic ancestors could endure the rigorous pleasure of wallowing in the snow drifts on the southern shores of the Baltic, simply because he had grown used to it.
In this poem there is no determined perspective and the foreground is uncertain. Contour is lacking. Each stanza is a vignette which may have been sketched in America, England or on the continent. All are void of color except that one which has a dash of green.
"Afternoon in February" is superior to "Woods in Winter." It is logical in order and more definite in outline, but illogical, unnatural in circumstance. It ends more gloomily than "Woods in Winter," the heart throbbing,
"And tolling within,
Like a funeral bell."
The poem is lacking in all joyous motion that would influence the reader's spirit, though there is one flash of color that lights up the scene with dazzling brilliancy:
"Through the clouds like ashes,
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red."
One would be almost inclined to speculate as to the sequel of the fourth stanza, if that mournful procession had not appeared:
"While through the meadows
Like fearful shadows
A funeral train."
Slowly passes
As it is, the gathering shadows and storm close round. We are in sympathy with the sound and scene. After a moments reflection, however, we are struck with the inconsistency and unnaturalness of the situation. The shades of night are overtaking the mourners ere the last solemn rights can be performed, and as the scene is swallowed up in the sea of darkness, the bell goes tolling on like the gong of a phantom ship, sunk in mid-ocean.
In mechanism, these three poems are much the same, but different in proportion. As a matter of course, in general the same objects of nature receive the same attention. But Longfellow's share of Anglo Saxon melancholy is seen in the absence of adjectives and adverbs of cheer. There is more lively motion in "Snow Bound" and more color. Though neither poet could give much variety of color to a winter scene. Whittier has more and a greater variety of sound.
There are two very apparent reasons for the disparity between these productions of Longfellow and "Snow Bound." One reason partly includes the other. First, the spirit in which they were written is different. "Woods in Winter" and "Afternoon in February" seem to have been produced from immediate or recent impressions, therefore there is lack of clearness. Both lack the mellow ripeness which comes with memory, and that power and choice of expression which is aided by distance of view. In "Snow Bound" the hardships, the dreariness and cold are half forgotten in recalling scenes now almost sacred.
Second, Longfellow is not a nature poet in one sense of the word; his is the realm of