Snow
Posted by Cassia on November 16, 1997 at 16:14:46:
I like the way Byatt uses the images of snow in the LaMotte poem in Chapter 8 and the Graves poem.
She tells her love while half asleep
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
Then:
All day snow fell
Snow fell all night
My silent lintel
Silted white
Inside a creature--
Feathered--Bright--
With Snowy Features
Eyes of Light
Propounds--Delight
It suggests a continuation, a message begun in the darkness, not delivered, muffled by the weight of the falling snow which engulfs it in silence. Silence covers the past and the future both. Snow covers things as well as silencing tehm. Forms, once familiar, are rendered less recognisilbe, shapes soften or are engulphed completely in its brighteness. The contrasts that make up our way of seeing are reduced; more light is reflected into our eyes but we cannot see more--it blinds us--we are blinded by brightness, muffled by weight.
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