Analysis of Snow

William Wilfred Campbell 1860 (Newmarket) – 1918 (Ottawa)



Down out of heaven,
Frost-kissed
And wind driven,
Flake upon flake,
Over forest and lake,   
Cometh the snow.

Folding the forest,
Folding the farms,
In a mantle of white;
And the river’s great arms,
Kissed by the chill night
From clamor to rest,
Lie all white and shrouded
Upon the world’s breast.

Falling so slowly
Down from above,
So white, hushed, and holy,
Folding the city
Like the great pity
Of God in His love; 20
Sent down out of heaven
On its sorrow and crime,
Blotting them, folding them
Under its rime.

Fluttering, rustling,
Soft as a breath,
The whisper of leaves,
The low pinions of death,
Or the voice of the dawning,
When day has its birth,   
Is the music of silence
It makes to the earth.

Thus down out of heaven,
Frost-kissed
And wind driven,
Flake upon flake,
Over forest and lake,
Cometh the snow.


Scheme aBACCD xefefgxg hihhhiajxj klxlkmxm aBACCD
Poetic Form
Metre 11110 11 0110 1011 101001 1001 10010 1001 001011 001011 11011 11011 111010 01011 10110 1101 111010 10010 10110 11011 111110 111001 101101 1011 10010 1101 01011 01111 1011010 11111 1010110 11101 111110 11 0110 1011 101001 1001
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 827
Words 150
Sentences 6
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 6, 8, 10, 8, 6
Lines Amount 38
Letters per line (avg) 17
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 126
Words per stanza (avg) 30
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
104

William Wilfred Campbell

William Wilfred Campbell (1 June ca. 1860 – 1 January 1918) was a Canadian poet. He is often classed as one of the country's Confederation Poets, a group that included fellow Canadians Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott; he was a colleague of Lampman and Scott. By the end of the 19th century, he was considered the "unofficial poet laureate of Canada." Although not as well known as the other Confederation poets today, Campbell was a "versatile, interesting writer" who was influenced by Robert Burns, the English Romantics, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Thomas Carlyle, and Alfred Tennyson. Inspired by these writers, Campbell expressed his own religious idealism in traditional forms and genres.  more…

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