A sombre universe ringed round with lead
Where fear and curses the long night explore.
Six months a cold sun hovers overhead;
The other six is night upon this land.
No beast; no stream; no wood; no leaves expand.
The desert Pole is not a waste so dead.
Now in the whole world there’s no horror quite
so cold and cruel as this glacial sun,
So like old Chaos as this boundless night;
I envy the least animals that run,
Which can find respite in brute slumber drowned,
So slowly is the skein of time unwound.