Here on the ridge where the shrill north-easter trails
Low clouds along the snow,
And in a streaming moonlit vapour veils
The peopled earth below,

Let me, O life, a little while forget
The horror of past years —
Man and his agony and bloody sweat,
The terror and the tears,

And struggle only with the mist and snow
Against the hateless wind,
Till scourged and shriven I again may go
To dwell among my kind.