Lay on, winter. Do your worst. I’m ready for you.
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 them goodbye — but I can’t.—The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service