Robert Service

The winter! the brightness that blinds you, 

   The white land locked tight as a drum, 

The cold fear that follows and finds you, 

   The silence that bludgeons you dumb. 

The snows that are older than history, 

   The woods where the weird shadows slant; 

The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery, 

   I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.