Låt det regna

Rainy Day, 1906

 Frank W. Benson 

“For after all, the best thing one can 

do when it is raining is let it rain.” 

                          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Kura skymning

The Children's Hour

 Jessie Willcox Smith 

The Children's Hour

Between the dark and the daylight,

When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupations,

That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:

Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together

To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me;

They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,

Their arms about me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,

Because you have scaled the wall,

Such an old mustache as I am

Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,

And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,

Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

And moulder in dust away!

                 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Snöflingor

Snowflake Edge 

Jefunne 

Jag fortsätter på Karins tema om snöflingor för plötsligt minns jag att Longfellow har skrivit en dikt som heter "Snow-flakes.

Snow-flakes

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. 

Even as our cloudy fancies take 

      Suddenly shape in some divine expression, 

Even as the troubled heart doth make 

      In the white countenance confession, 

            The troubled sky reveals 

            The grief it feels. 

This is the poem of the air, 

      Slowly in silent syllables recorded; 

This is the secret of despair, 

      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, 

            Now whispered and revealed 

            To wood and field. 

                                Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

snö subst. ~n [snön´] 
• nederbörd i form av vita, mjuka, löst sammanfogade iskristaller som faller under den kalla årstiden i st. f. regn{→hagel 1, regn, snöregn}: snöfall; yrsnö; ~n föll i stora flingor; det är ~ i luften det verkar kunna börja snöa
BET.NYANSER: a) om större mängd av (nedfallna) sammanpackade iskristaller av detta slag {→is}: snötäcke; nysnö; skotta ~; ~n låg länge det året b) utvidgat om likn. vitt pulver: kolsyresnö c) spec. om kokain ⟨vard.⟩: sälja ~ på gatan
IDIOM: den ~ som föll i fjol ngt som inte längre är aktuellt; det som göms i ~ kommer upp i tö ingenting kan döljas i längden; ha ~ i håret vara vithårig
HIST.: sedan äldre fornsvensk tid; fornsv. snio(r), snö; gemens. germ. ord, besl. med bl.a. lat. nix 'snö'

snow (v.) 

c. 1300, from the noun, replacing Old English sniwan, which would have yielded modern snew (which existed as a parallel form until 17c. and, in Yorkshire, even later), from the root of snow (n.). The Old English verb is cognate with Middle Dutch sneuuwen, Dutch sneeuwen, Old Norse snjova, Swedish snöga.

Also þikke as snow þat snew,
Or al so hail þat stormes blew.
[Robert Mannyng of Brunne, transl. Wace's "Chronicle," c. 1330]

The figurative sense of "overwhelm; surround, cover, and imprison" (as deep snows can do to livestock) is 1880, American English, in phrase to snow (someone) under. Snow job "strong, persistent persuasion in a dubious cause" is World War II armed forces slang, probably from the same metaphoric image.

snow (n.) 

Old English snaw "snow, that which falls as snow; a fall of snow; a snowstorm," from Proto-Germanic *snaiwaz (source also of Old Saxon and Old High German sneo, Old Frisian and Middle Low German sne, Middle Dutch snee, Dutch sneeuw, German Schnee, Old Norse snjor, Gothic snaiws "snow"), from PIE root *sniegwh- "snow; to snow" (source also of Greek nipha, Latin nix (genitive nivis), Old Irish snechta, Irish sneachd, Welsh nyf, Lithuanian sniegas, Old Prussian snaygis, Old Church Slavonic snegu, Russian snieg', Slovak sneh "snow"). The cognate in Sanskrit, snihyati, came to mean "he gets wet." As slang for "cocaine" it is attested from 1914.

flake (n.) 

"thin flat piece of snow; a particle," early 14c., also flauke, flagge, which is of uncertain origin, possibly from Old English *flacca "flakes of snow," or from cognate Old Norse flak "flat piece," from Proto-Germanic *flakaz (source also of Middle Dutch vlac, Dutch vlak "flat, level," Middle High German vlach, German Flocke "flake"); from PIE root *plak- (1) "to be flat." From late 14c. as "a speck, a spot."