A Snow Man

Summary


"A Snow Man" is a lively winter poem brimming with the cold-cheeked excitement of children building a snowman outdoors. Four friends — Nell, Dolly, Willie, and Dan — pack stones for eyes, a snowy nose, and a comically pig-snouted mouth before arming themselves with snowballs the next day to topple their creation. The poem captures the full arc of a winter game: the joyful build, the gleeful destruction, and the quiet inevitability of the thaw that follows.

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Oh, the beautiful snow!
We’re all in a glow—
Nell, Dolly, and Willie, and Dan;
For the primest of fun,
When all’s said and done,
Is just making a big snow man.

Two stones for his eyes
Look quite owlishly wise,
A hard pinch of snow for his nose;
Then a mouth that’s as big
As the snout of a pig,
And he’ll want an old pipe, I suppose.

Four children laughing as they finish building a snowman in the snow, illustrating the poem A Snow Man.

Then the snow man is done,
And to-morrow what fun
To make piles of snow cannon all day,
And to pelt him with balls
Till he totters and falls,
And a thaw comes and melts him away.


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Credits

Unknown writer is the attributed author of this short winter poem, whose origins remain untraced. The verse's bouncy rhythm and named child characters — Nell, Dolly, Willie, and Dan — give it the feel of a Victorian or Edwardian children's rhyme, likely composed for a schoolbook or periodical of that era.