The Cross of Snow
The Cross of Snow - fact Summary
Composed After Wife's Death
Longfellow's short lyric presents a mourner who sees his dead wife's face in a night-lamp and compares his persistent grief to a mountain "cross of snow." The poem memorializes a singular loss and frames sorrow as an unchanging, solemn emblem carried daily. Its closing line—"These eighteen years"—emphasizes the duration and constancy of the poet's mourning.
Read Complete AnalysesIn the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face -- the face of one long dead -- Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died; and soul more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose; nor can in books be read The legend of a life more benedight. There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side. Such is the cross I wear upon my breast These eighteen years, through all the changingscenes And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
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