Softly falls the Winter snow,

'Round about the ship to blow

Blow and wander, bright and slow

Where never more men dare to go.

Whence was she borne this ship afar?

And bringing in her prow a star?

The ship, the ship so ghostly gray,

From home she wandered far away

And to this shore, so men do say,

She came at last and came to stay.

Stay? Why here? Her misty shroud

Captures the wind and sings aloud.

This song, we know, was heard before

Upon the distant, hither shore

Wherefrom she came to nevermore

Return, this song in faith she bore.

What voice sang first this windy tune?

'Tis like a lonely, sighing moon.

Whispering lights shift like the fey

And murm'ring in her shrouds so gray

We hear the answer softly play

Upon the ropes that split and fray.

That answer to where the song was found:

“In caverns hidden underground.”

What caverns were they? A ship to enclose

“Caverns with gardens of lily and rose.”

Gardens underground? “No man now knows

How flowers may grow where no sun goes.”

If but to learn of the ship her tale

And why she wanders now 'lone and pale.

Yet her speech is of wind and blows about

In riddles and twists of words. Whence out

Of breath she falls silent, the rising shout

Of her stillness rendered. Of words her drought.

We cannot understand her rhyme

And swiftly, now, closes her time.

She turns her prow to sail along,

The shoreline here. Her murm'ring song

Whispers through bows. We follow along

And wonder e'er more what brought her wrong.

Wrong, yes, to bring her here and strand,

Her lost near shores of foreign land.

She glides beside the shoreline white

And whispers of wonders in the night.

Her hull gleams silver and bitter-bright

Shines the star in her prow as through the night

She sails away, yet this we know,

She will return, when falls the snow.

Farewell! We call, and she replies,

In tongue to make the foolish wise,

“Farewell, and blessed be your skies.”

A mistiness o’er-clouds our eyes.

Ah, ship so dear, though you must go,

Return, when falls the Winter snow.