Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Snow Is Falling All Over



A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.



It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

—James Joyce, The Dead in the collection Dubliners

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2 Comments:

Blogger S. Kearney said...

Still waiting for our snow here ... we'd like to skiing at Xmas, if all goes well in the sky. :-)

7:51 AM  
Blogger Art Durkee said...

We've gotten, I dunno, eight inches or so in the past two weeks, with more on the way. It makes up for some recent winter-drought years, where the snowpeak was so lean it didn't replenish the summer water supply. So, while I hate the cold, the heavy snow makes it worth it.

2:04 PM  

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