The Snow Storm, A Ballad

Poetry by Seba Smith, Music by L. Heath
(Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1843)

The cold wind swept the mountain's height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And mid the cheerless hours of night
A mother wandered with her child.

As through the drifted snows she pressed,
The babe was sleeping on her breast,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.

And colder still the winds did blow,
And darker hours of night came on,
And deeper grew the drifts of snow--
Her limbs were chilled, her strength was gone.

"O God!" she cried, in accents wild,
"If I must perish, save my child,
"If I must perish save my child."

She stript her mantle from her breast,
And bared her bosom to the storm;
As round the child she wrapped the vest,
She smiled to think that it was warm.

With one cold kiss, one tear she shed,
And sunk upon a snowy bed,
And sunk upon a snowy bed.

At dawn, a traveller passed by,
And saw her 'neath a snowy veil--
The frost of death was in her eye,
Her cheek was cold, and hard and pale--

He moved the robe from off the child;
The babe looked up, and sweetly smiled,
The babe looked up, and sweetly smiled.

Courtesy Harvard Theatre Collection,
The Houghton Library

ARTIST: Caroline Moseley


RECORDED AT: Taplin Auditorium
Princeton University
James Moses, Recording Engineer

© Copyright 1999 by Caroline Moseley,
All rights reserved.

Digitized by Adam Soroka, Johnny Lee & Lisa Gottschalk
at the Digital Media Center,
Clemons Library, Univ. of Virginia

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