Noiseless.

Chełmoński, Partridges in the Snow, 1891

THE FIRST SNOWFALL

The snow had begun in the gloaming,

   And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway

   With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock

   Wore ermine too dear for an earl,

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree

   Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara

   Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down,

   And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window

   The noiseless work of the sky,

And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,

   Like brown leaves whirling by ...

James Russell Lowell, from "The First Snowfall"