SNOW-BOUND.

A WINTER IDYL.

TO THE MEMORY

OF

THE HOUSEHOLD IT DESCRIBES,

THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.

The inmates of the family at the Whittier homestead who are
referred to in the poem were my father, mother, my brother and two
sisters, and my uncle and aunt both unmarried. In addition, there
was the district school-master who boarded with us. The "not
unfeared, half-welcome guest" was Harriet Livermore, daughter of
Judge Livermore, of New Hampshire, a young woman of fine natural
ability, enthusiastic, eccentric, with slight control over her
violent temper, which sometimes made her religious profession
doubtful. She was equally ready to exhort in school-house
prayer-meetings and dance in a Washington ball-room, while her
father was a member of Congress. She early embraced the doctrine of
the Second Advent, and felt it her duty to proclaim the Lord's
speedy coming. With this message she crossed the Atlantic and spent
the greater part of a long life in travelling over Europe and Asia.
She lived some time with Lady Hester Stanhope, a woman as fantastic