A Winter Spell

O cold, inexorable darkness
Draw back now beyond these circling walls.
Should fear, and want, and danger walk
It shall not be, it is not here.

Let this place of warming light
Bulwark against freezing night: a promise
Holding through the day that we, come nightfall
May sleep safely, cozy, soundly in the soft
Down drift of love and food and enough.

Pass on, cold night. Howl your rages,
Pelt your icy javelins. Blot the stars and
Dance the barren trees in anger.
But come not here. Pour upon the freezing ground
Your brutal rain, but step
Not one foot within this woolen nest.

Have your time, o winter dark. But pass us by,
We creatures huddling here.

With all that has been taken
Let not more be taken.

For each calamity you measure
Slip past, mighty winter.

Have mercy.