Snow in the Suburbs
Growing up in the suburbs of New York, it is easy for me to picture a snow covered day. That is why I was easily able to relate to the poem “Snow in the Suburbs”, by Thomas Hardy. Like a painter with a paintbrush, Hardys use of imagery is so effective, that one can place themselves in the exact snowy day he describes.
Hardy immediately forces the reader to picture snow covered trees in the first two lines of the poem. “Every branch big with it, / Bent every twig with it;” (1-2). This line makes me picture how the snow piles up on each branch looking tall, or “big” as Hardy says.
In the ninth line, Hardy again generates an image in my mind when he writes “The palings are glued together like a wall” (9). I think of a fence with no snow and the spaces between each paling, and then I also envision what Hardy is describing, as all of those spaces are now filled with snow.
The most vivid illustration comes when Hardy describes a bird flying to a tree.
A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eyes, (11-14)
I picture the bird flying into the tree, and the vibration of him landing causes some snow on a higher branch to fall and hit him right in the head. I have seen snow falling from trees many times, whether it was because of it melting or, just like this case, an animal caused it.
Finally, I see what appears to be a stray cat looking at me, and it is hungry and needing help as I take him in. Hardy writes “A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin; / And we take him in” (21-22). I can see myself feeling bad for this cat, and that it is too cold for it to be left outside.
Through the effective use of imagery,