1950s Archive

The Snow Farm

Originally Published April 1955

The March wind leaping on the skies

Like lion, like lamb, like lion, spies

A frail lady, pale as the snow,

Lying late where mayflowers grow.

Has David found my secret out

And picked my flowers ahead of me?

Yes, David smelt your mayflowers out,

But he's at the bottom of the sea.

David and the last Snow ship

Went down in 1850's gale.

Five lots of Snow children have picked

Since then your flowers pink and pale.

Mercy me! how can that be?

You've slept a century in the pines.

Who's swept the rooms and scrubbed the floor?

Great-great-grand-nieces. The floor shines.

They are cleaning house today.

Mother Snow is full of spring;

Big Girl, Little Girl, Middle-Sized

Are painting and are papering.

Spinster Aunt is polishing

The birthday cup that bears your name.

The whole house snows with feather beds;

All March months are all the same.

Bachelor Uncle finds no place

Where he can sit in peace and dirt.

Little Boy's wading thawing brooks

And getting sopping to his shirt.

Big Boy's taking his first shave,

And his mind is in a whirl;

He has your mayflowers in a cup

Ready to take to his best girl.

Woodchuck's up and wide awake,

He has his back door nearly done.

Hound Dog lies a dead dog now

Sopping up the first warm sun.

Father's mending the line fence,

Middle Boy's holding the barbed wire.

Grandpa's burning junipers

And half the pasture is on fire.

The cow's are restless in the shed,

They smell the grass by the southern ledge;

Sounds are falling from the sky,

Wild geese fly northward in their wedge.

Mother cooks your split-pea soup

Around a ripe old green ham bone,

With onions, all day's slowest heat;

The family'll eat it till they groan.

All is as it always was.

Sleep again, frail Ann,

No need to worry over flowers

Nor worry over a man.

Other girls and other men

Carry on your name;

The family's all new faces now,

But it's still the same.

Strangers now with your sweet face

Relive your fragile hours;

Snows no century can change

Pick snows of your mayflowers.

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