The hard winter

The iron-faced plough-land, riven by the ice,

the unremitting wind too hard for snow.

Blue fieldfares scattered on the plough.

They lift and drift a foot and pitch

and watch you pass.

The red-wings died before them. They will die,

Both air and earth have joined with men

they cannot fight;

their god has fouled them, and the fieldfares cannot fly

the drifting flock of fieldfares from the north.