Categories
1920s Poem

Winter Sweetness

Winter Sweetness [1]

By Langston Hughes
Annotations by Kristina bowers
A microscope slide of a white snowflake on a black background.
Detail of “William Bentley’s Snowflake 990” by William Bentley, c.1890, albumen print. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 31, Image No. SIA2013-09130. CC/0
     The little house is sugar,
        Its roof with snow is piled,
     And from its tiny window,
        Peeps a maple-sugar child. [2]
Original text of “Winter Sweetness” as published in the January 1921 issue of The Brownies’ Book. Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
hughes, langston. “Winter Sweetness.” The Brownies’ book 2, no. 1 (january 1921): 27. https://www.loc.gov/item/22001351/

Painting of a house covered in snow with trees in the foreground.
Detail of “Winter in the Country” by George Henry Durrie, 1858, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Open Access.

[1] “Winter Sweetness” was the first poem Langston Hughes published at 19.

[2] For more information see: Story Time: Essays on Children’s Literature from the Betsy Beinecke Shirley Collection.

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