-- By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --
1863
Snowflakes carries quite a gloomy and melancholy tone, yet vividly accurate depiction of the winter cold.
Longfellow wrote this piece less than to years after the tragic death of his wife. Frances Longfellow passed the morning after a burning accident; her dress caught fire while she was trying to seal a letter with wax. Longfellow was scorched while trying to put out the fire and his signature beard, later in life, was the result of not being able to shave due to his burnt face. He as even unable to attend Frances' funeral while hospitalized for his own injuries.
Longfellow never emotionally recovered; it would take him 18 years before writing the sonnet The Cross of Snow to commemorate her death. Shortly after publishing Snowflakes, Longfellow took up the task of translating the English version of Dante's Inferno.
