Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/195

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Beautiful Snow

been made into a picture! The attention of the producers is called to it without charge.

Every once in a while a pathetic story connected with this poem starts anew on a round of the press. This tale as dressed-up by some resourceful sob-master so far surpasses the abilities of the present scribe that the only thing for him to do is to quote:

During the early part of the Civil War, one dark Saturday night in midwinter, there died in the Commercial Hospital at Cincinnati, a young woman over whose head only two and twenty summers had passed. She had once been possessed of an enviable share of beauty, and had been, as she herself said, “flattered and sought for the charms of her face,” but, alas! upon her fair brow was written that terrible word—prostitute.

Highly educated and of accomplished manners, she might have shone in the best society. But the evil hour that proved her ruin was the door from childhood, and having spent a young life in disgrace and shame, the poor friendless one died the melancholy death of a broken-hearted outcast.

Among her personal effects was found in manuscript a poem entitled “The Beautiful Snow,” which was immediately carried to Enos B. Reed, at that time editor of the National Union. In the columns of that paper, on the morning of the day following the girl’s death, the poem appeared in print for the first time. When the paper containing the poem

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