Oh! the snow! the beautiful snow!

Filling the sky and the streets below,

Over the housetops, over the street,

Over the heads of the people you meet,

Dancing,

Flitting,

Skipping along,

Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong.

Flying to kiss the fair lady's cheek,

Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak ;

Beautiful snow from the heavens 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 their maddening fun;

It plays in its glee with every one.

Chasing,

Laughing,

Hurrying by,

It lights on the face and sparkles the eye;

And playing dogs, with a bark and a bound,

Snap at the crystals that 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 songt

How the gay sleds like meteors pass by,

Bright for a moment, then lost to the eye;

Ringing,

Swinging,

Hashing, they go

Over the crest of the beautiful snow

Snow so pure when it fell from the sky,

As to make one regret to see it lie

To be trampled and tracked by thousands

of feet,

Till it blends with the filth of the horrible

street.

Once I was pure as the snow but I fell,

Fell like a snow flake from Heaven to hell;

Fell to be trampled on as filth in the street,

Fell to be scoffed at, spit on and beat;

Pleading,

Cursing,

Dreading to die!

Scllins mv soul to whoever would buy;

Dealing in shame for a morsel of tjicud!

Hating the living and shunning 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 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,

Sister all

God and myself have I 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 cn or above me, I know

There's nothing so pure as the beautiful

snow.

How strange it should be that this beauti­

ful snow

Should fall on a sinner w ith nowhere to go;

How strange it- should be when night

comes again

If the snow and the ie struck my desolate

brain!

Fainting,

Freezing,

Dying alone,

Too w icked for prayer, too weak for a moan

To be heard on the streets of a 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.