«Snow keeps falling night and day — / some god, now turned more strict, / is sweeping out from his domain / scraps of his old manuscripts. Sheaves of ballads, songs and odes, / all that now seems bland or weak — / he sweeps it down from his high clouds, / caught up now by newer work.»
«I went out in the clear air / and raised my eyes to the heavens / to understand our stars / and their January brilliance. I found the key to the riddle; / I grasped the heiroglyph’s secret; / I carried into our own tongue / the work of the star-poet. I recorded all this on a stump, /...»
«By candlelight, / in midday dark, I’ll warm / your words beside the stove; / frost’s bitten them. Frost’s wordless spell / had made your letter dumb. / The letters melt, drip tears; / calling me home.»
«I felt in soul and body, / for the first time in years, / the silence after a blizzard, / the even light of the stars. Should the magi wish to see / their kindness to the end, / they’d bring me sheets of paper / A candle. Matches. And a pen. »