Now let the weather do its worst,
With frost and sleet and blowing,
Rage like a beldam wild and curst,
And have its fill of snowing.
Now let the ice in savage vise
Grip meadow, brook, and branches,
Down from the north pour winter forth
In roaring avalanches.

Never Have I felt a December
So cold, so lonely.
The walk along the lake,
That changed a fate
The stumble in the snow,
I didn’t let go.