Frost, Robert

Autographed manuscript of Frost's poem, Snow Falling After It Clears.

• Robert Frost (American).
• N.p.: 1933.
• Ink on paper.
• Fine published in the Yale Review, Autumn 1934, and later collected in A Further Range.
• Text varies slightly from the final form.
• Inscribed beneath, “Robert Frost, For Ada Snelf March 4, 1933, Amherst Mass.”

Snow Falling After It Clears

In the thick of a teeming snowfall

I saw my shadow on snow.

I turned and looked back up at the sky,

Where we still look to ask the why

Of everything below.

If I shed such a darkness,

If the reason was in me,

That shadow of mine should show in form

Against the shapeless shadow of storm,

How swarthy I must be.

I turned and looked back upward.

The whole sky was blue.

And the flakes still floating at a pause

Were but frost knots on invisible gauze

With the sun shining through.