Let It Snow
(Playing ~ "Let It Snow")

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
~ from "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Aren't you glad it's warm and cozy inside when you look out your window!
If you haven't read it lately, be sure to read the original version below of
"The Little Match Girl."

Growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I recall more frequent and bigger snows than we now have here
in the middle of the State. That's likely because Winters don't seem to be as cold now as they once were
here in Tennessee. Like all children, we had delightful times playing in the snow. We looked forward
to the delicious "snow cream" that Mother often made after the second snow of the year. (I don't think
we had to worry so much about pollution as nowadays.) And, having grown up in the days before
"average daily attendance," we walked to school "come rain, sleet or snow," and had fun!

The big snows in college (Carson-Newman, Jefferson City, Tennessee) were fun and made the campus
beautiful ! We always drew a lot of kids from Florida, and it was a delight each year watching
their expressions as so many saw snow for the first time!

I Heard a Bird Sing

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

"We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,"
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

~ Oliver Herford

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

~ from "The Snowstorm" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Little Match Girl
(original version)

     It was terribly cold; it snowed and was already almost dark, and evening came on, the last evening
of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through
the streets. When she left her own house she certainly had had slippers on; but of what use were they?
They were big slippers, and her mother had used them till then, so big were they. The little maid lost them
as she slipped across the road, where two carriages were rattling by terribly fast. One slipper was not
to be found again, and a boy had seized the other, and run away with it. He thought he could use it
very well as a cradle, some day when he had children of his own.

So now the little girl went with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold.
In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and a bundle of them in her hand. No one had bought
of her all day, and no one had given her a farthing. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along,
a picture of misery, poor little girl! The snowflakes covered her long fair hair, which fell in pretty curls
over her neck; but she did not think of that now.

In all the windows lights were shining, and there was a glorious smell of roast goose, for it was
New Year's Eve. Yes, she thought of that!    In a corner formed by two houses, one of which projected
beyond the other, she sat down, cowering. She had drawn up her little feet, but she was still colder,
and she did not dare to go home, for she had sold no matches, and did not bring a farthing of money.
From her father she would certainly receive a beating, and besides it was cold at home, for they had
nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistled, though the largest rents had been
stopped with straw and rags.    

Her little hands were almost benumbed with the cold! Ah! a match might do her good, if she could only
draw one from the bundle, and rub it against the wall, and warm her hands at it. She drew one out. R-r-atch!
how it sputtered and burned! It was a warm, bright flame, like a little candle, when she held her hands
over it; it was a wonderful little light! It really seemed to the little girl as if she sat before a great
polished stove, with bright brass feet and a brass cover. How the fire burned! How comfortable it was!
But the little flame went out, and the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the
burned match in her hand.

     A second was rubbed against the wall. It burned up, and when the light fell upon the wall it became
transparent, like a thin veil, and she could see through it into the room. On the table a snow-white cloth
was spread; upon it stood a shining dinner service; the roast goose smoked gloriously, stuffed with apples
and dried plums. And what was still more splendid to behold, the goose hopped down from the dish
and waddled along the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl.

Then the match went out, and only the thick, damp, cold wall was before her. She lighted another match.
Then she was sitting under a beautiful Christmas tree; it was greater and more ornamental than the one
she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant's. Thousands of candles burned upon the green
branches, and coloured pictures like those in the print shops looked down upon them. The little girl
stretched forth her hand toward them; then the match went out.

The Christmas lights mounted higher. She saw them now as stars in the sky : one of them fell down,
forming a long line of fire.  "Now someone is dying," thought the little girl, for her old grandmother,
the only person who had loved her, and who was now dead, had told her when a star fell down a soul
mounted up to God.

She rubbed another match against the wall; it became bright again, and in the brightness
the old grandmother stood clear and shining, mild and lovely. "Grandmother!" cried the child,
"Oh! take me with you! I know you will go when the match is burned out. You will vanish like
the warm fire, the warm food, and the great glorious Christmas tree!"  

    And she hastily rubbed the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to hold her grandmother fast.
And the matches burned with such a glow that it became brighter than in the middle of the day:
grandmother had never been so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and both
flew in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger,
nor care - they were with God.   

   But in the corner, leaning against the wall, sat the poor girl with red cheeks and smiling mouth, frozen
to death on the last evening of the Old Year. The New Year's sun rose upon a little corpse! The child
sat there, stiff and cold, with the matches of which one bundle was burned.

"She wanted to warm herself," the people said. No one imagined what a beautiful thing she had seen,
and in what glory she had gone in with her grandmother to the New Year's Day.

~ Hans Christian Andersen

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