In the first four stanzas of the poem, Whittier introduces the critical theme of the power of nature. The mood here is edged with quiet crisis. Much like the English Romantics, whom Whittier admired, the poem begins with an assertion of the centrality of nature. This is, however, not Mother Nature. This is no nurturing force. There is power in the natural world as the winter storm approaches. The sun is “cheerless” (2) and its light feeble. The sun sinks from sight in the face of the storm gathering on the horizon. The hills fade to gray as the world darkens into night. The feeling here is foreboding, the unnerving anticipation of something unusual, something cataclysmic. The members of the family go about their routine chores, pretending that nature was not about to demonstrate its might. The children dutifully fetch cordwood, sweep the hay from the barn floors, and feed the horses and cows their grains. The narrator suggests a quiet and uncertain urgency about the chores, a common-sense response to the imminence of the powerful storm. The poem lovingly details these everyday farm chores. But they are prelude to the unleashing of the nor’easter.