Snow Beneath Whose Chilly Softness

Snow Beneath Whose Chilly Softness - context Summary

Published Posthumously 1929

The poem addresses winter snow as if speaking to a graveclothes. Dickinson notes that some people who never rested before are making "their first Repose this Winter," and she entreats the snow to cover them gently. The speaker contrasts the unfamiliar dead with those already acclimated to cold, questioning whether the austere snow will blanket newcomers with the same tenderness it affords other, more accustomed bodies. It frames snow as both covering and moral presence.