Today it is snowing. This is unusual. In England nowadays, it does not snow as often as it used to. Where I live, we get only one or two light falls of snow every winter. And when there is even a moderate fall of snow, there is chaos on the roads and railways. Two years ago, here in Birmingham, two centimeters of snow was enough to bring the city to a standstill. The next day all the schools in the city were closed, and the children played outside and built snowmen and threw s*****lls. Today, I imagine children in school are looking anxiously out of the window, hoping that there will be so much snow that tomorrow they will not have to go to school. I am afraid they will be disappointed. The snow is already turning to sleet, and melting on the ground. Tomorrow will not be crisp and clear with snow on the ground, it will be just another cold wet English winter's day. Nonetheless, I will read you a short poem about the snow by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.
A vocabulary note. STANDSTILL - to bring something to a standstill means to stop something moving. The snow stopped the traffic and the trains - nothing could move. The snow had brought the city to a standstill.
And a grammar note. In three places in the poem, Longfellow places adjectives AFTER the nouns which they describe, not before as we normally do in English - "her garments shaken", "woodlands brown and bare", "harvest-fields forsaken". When you are a famous poet, you can do this too. Until then, keep your adjectives in front of their nouns!
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.
A vocabulary note. STANDSTILL - to bring something to a standstill means to stop something moving. The snow stopped the traffic and the trains - nothing could move. The snow had brought the city to a standstill.
And a grammar note. In three places in the poem, Longfellow places adjectives AFTER the nouns which they describe, not before as we normally do in English - "her garments shaken", "woodlands brown and bare", "harvest-fields forsaken". When you are a famous poet, you can do this too. Until then, keep your adjectives in front of their nouns!