Snow

To Madame Jacqueline Pasteur Vallery-Radot

What silence, stricken by a shovel’s to-and-fro!

I wake up, awaited by this newlaid snow

That grabs me in the quick of my dear warmth.

My eyes find out a day all pale and tough

And my languid flesh is scared of innocence.

Oh! how many snowflakes, during my sweet absence,

Endure the somber skies the night to pass sans mark!

What pure desert fallen out of soundless dark

Came to undo the features of the world enchanted

Beneath this ample candor dully supplemented

And merge them into one faceless voiceless site

Where some roofs are all that meets the vanished sight

Keeping hid their treasure of accustomed life

Scarce offering a wish of smoke more vague than rife.

Paul Valéry