Always I will be followed by the cautious, insistent leaves;
Autumn will shadow me across the wind-streaked hills;
Always a lank blue heron will shift out of the north
When the river chills
And the hounds of the frost go forth.

There will be time, later, to burrow in and sleep:
Not now when the poplars wrap their nerves against the bite
And snarl of the jagged gusts. Not now. Later, I know,
There will come the white
Dead hours of sleep and snow

And the incessant staggering of bitter swift green dusk
Under the fusilade of sleet; the bludgeoning dark
Beating the gaunt horizon down in a blind rage of stars! …
O I know his mark
And the welt of his branding-bars!

I hate him! … If only I could fight off that dull
Odor of sleep! If only I could fight it off!
That creeping smell of the frost settling down like a hood …
Like a long hard cough …
If … if … only … I could …!