Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1878-10-24
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BEAUTIFUL SNOW.

BEAUTIFUL SNOW.
The Omaha Republican gives the following
history of the origin of this production, which
the London Spectator has pronounced the
finest poem ever written in America
"The early part of the war, one dark Sat
urday night in the dead of winter, there died
in the Commercial Hospital in Cincinnati, a
young woman over whose head only two
and twenty summers had passed. She had
been once possessed Of an enviable share of
beauty, and had been, ss she herself says,
"fattered and sought for the charms Of the
face;' but alas upon her fair brow had
long been written that terrible word-prosti-
tute! Once tho pride of respectable parent.
age, her first wrong step was the small begin.
ming of the Same old story over again," I"
which has been the only life history Of thou
sands. Highly educated and accomplished
in manners, she might have shone in the best
of society. But the evil hour that proved
her ruin was the door from childhood, and
having spent young life in disgrace and
shame, the poor friendess one died the mel
ancholy death of broken hearted outcast.
Among her personal effects was found, in
manuscript, "The Beautiful Snow" which was
Immediately carried to Enos B. Reed, gen.
tleman of culture and literary taste, who was
at that time editor of the National Union.
In the columns of that paper-nnt the morning
of the day following the girls death, the poem
appeared in print for the first time. When
the paper containing the poem came out on
Sunday morning, the body of the victim had
not yet received burial. The attention of
Thomas Buchanan Reed, one of the first
American poets, was soon directed to the new.
ly published lines, who was so taken with
their stirring pathos, that he Immediately fol-
lowed the corpse to it's final resting place.
THE BEAUTIFUL SNOW.
Oh /! the snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and the earth below;
Over the house tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Skimming along;
Beautiful snow !! it can do nothing wrong;
Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek,
Clinging to lips in q frolicsome freak
Beautiful snow from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel, gentle as love
Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow,
How the flakes gather and laugh as they 60
WDlTllHR aDOuC i'll LnelT IUdu6UlUS
1t plays in it's glee with every one
Chasing
Laughing,
Hurrying by,
It lights on the face and it sparkles the eye,
And the dogs, with bark and bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around
The town is alive and it's heart in glow,
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow.
How widely the crowd goes swaying along,
Haiing each other with humor and song!
How the gay sledges like motors flash by
Bright for a moment then lost to the eye!
Swinging,
Dashing they go,
Over the crust Of the beautiful snow
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,
AS to make one regretto see it lie,
To be trampled and tracked by the thousands of
Till it blends with the filth in the horrible street.
Fell like the snow -fakes, from heaven to hell;
Fell to be trampled as filth in the street;
Fell to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat.
Pleading,
Dreading to die;
Selling my soul to whoever would buy;
Dealing in shame for morsel of bread;
Merciful God Have Ifallen so low?
And yet was once like the beautiful snow;
Once was fair as the beautiful snow,
With an eye like crystal, heart like it's glow !;
Once was loved for my innocent grace
Flattered and sought for the charms Of my face.
Sister, and all,
God and myself have lost by my fall
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by,
Will make wide swoop lest wander too nigh /;
For all that is on or above me, know
There's nothing as pure as the beautiful snow.
How strange it sould be, that this beautiful snow
Should fall on sinner nowhere to go;
How strange it should be when night comes
again,
If the snow and ice struck my desperate brain
Painting,
Dying alone;
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for moan
To be heard in the street of the crazy town,
Gone mad in the Joy of the snow coming down {;
To be and to die in my terrible woe,
With bed and shroud OF the beautiful snow.
B9n The Pacific coast, within few weeks
past, has witnessed succession of atrocious
crimes First came the murder instigated by
the Public Administrator of Sacramento to
get the victims estate into his hands next
three thieves entered pawnbroker's shop in
Portland, Oregon, in broad daylight, beating
the pawnbroker nearly to death, and made of
with money and jewelry, killing boy in their
flight soon afterward young man in San
Fancisco attempted to kill a girl scarcely
fourteen years old with whom he was in love; ;
almost simultaneously man in the same city,
thinking he had accomplished the murder Of
his wife, set fire to his house and committed
suicide finally, an old resident of an interior
county of California after several days of
gambling and dissi patton, scattered strychnine
over household provisions and in water
bucket, in the hope of poisoning his wife and
son, killed his daughter of 20 years with a
hatchet, and then blew out his own miserable
brains with pistol To these acts are to be
added the suicides of two prominent San
Franciscans, one former tax collector, and
the other the president of the French Savings
Bank. The papers have discovered that it is