The day dawned in silence, snow-covered.
The snow had already ceased, during the night,
So that the world, reduced as it was
To soft, contoured chiaroscuro
Seemed not so much to have changed at night,
As always to have been that way.

He stood on the porch, unwilling to puncture
The snow-skin, loath to disprove
A certain thought that rose in his mind:
That the snow, far from yielding,
Would prove as impervious to his body
As a cold eternal ivory Buddha:

That his foot, instead of breaking through,
Would by its light and prayerful touch
Set the landscape deeply chiming.