John Greenleaf Whittier
Snow-Bound
A Winter Idyll
"Snow-Bound" by John Greenleaf Whittier is a long narrative poem first published in 1866. Set in a rural New England farmhouse, the poem depicts a family snowbound for three days during a fierce winter storm. Isolated by the relentless weather, family members gather around the hearth to share stories of their lives, adventures, and memories. Written shortly after the American Civil War, this enormously popular work offered readers a nostalgic vision of peaceful domesticity and simpler rural life in an earlier America.