Comforter of the Afflicted (II)

Now Winter gives me his hand to hold,
I hold his hand, his hand is cold;

And in my head, afar off, blaze
Old summers in their sick dog-days;

And in slow whiteness there arise
Pale shimmering tents deep in my eyes

And Sicilies are in them, rows
Of islands, archipelagos.

It is a voyage round about,
Too swift to drive my fever out,

To all the countries where you die,
Sailing the seas as years go by,

And all the while the tempest beats
Upon the ships of my white sheets,

That surge with starlight on them shed,
And all their swelling sails outspread.

I taste upon my lips the salt
Of ocean, like the bitter malt

Drunk in the land's last orgy, when
From the taverns reel the men;

And now I see that land I know:
It is a land of endless snow...;

Make thou the snow less hard to bear,
O Mary of good coverings, there,

And less like hares my fingers run
O'er my white sheets that fever spun.