Snow beneath whose chilly softness 1
Some that never lay
Make their first Repose this Winter
I admonish Thee
Blanket Wealthier the Neighbor 5
We so new bestow
Than thine acclimated Creature
Wilt Thou, Austere Snow?
Some that never lay
Make their first Repose this Winter
I admonish Thee
Blanket Wealthier the Neighbor 5
We so new bestow
Than thine acclimated Creature
Wilt Thou, Austere Snow?
(F.921/J.942)
[1] whose chilly softness:: the white, cold, soft bodies of snow-geese.
[5, 6] Blanket, bestow:: to cover with the straw bestawed by farmers.
[8] Austere:: rigid, stern. Snow:: snow-goose.
I am unable to inform you at what age the Snow Goose attains its pure white plumage, as I have found that a judgment formed from individuals kept in confinement is not to be depended upon. In one instance at least, a friend of mine who had kept a bird of this species four years, wrote to me that he was despairing of ever seeing it become pure white. Two years after, he sent me much the same message; but, at the commencement of the next spring, the Goose was a Snow Goose, and the change had taken place in less than a month. ─ The birds of America, Volume VI (1843)