Snow

by Louis MacNeice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

I have nothing to say about this poem at the moment, but it’s by MacNeice, I like it, and it’s been snowing here in Minneapolis today. The plows are going past as I write. There are great phrases, great sounds in the verses. It gets, I think, at the incompleteness of the analytical without doing something silly like being all analytical about it.