“Now it’s my turn to sing!”

they sit with their wives all day in the sun,
That open before me? What I see
Hoarfrost is in his bones and on his head,
Over the chilly dale.
I draw near to one of them, the lowest,
Its consciousness of my white consciousness,
IV. The Paths to Cathay
They move against, or through, or by, or toward.
At these masses the snow hides from me.
Place of absorbing snow, itself to be
A kind of snow, which hesitates
I know,
The flakes which have stolen onto the flagstones
Sought to contrive, intending to express
Dismal, endless plain—
Columbuses or Gamas, ever pass,
Is dumb; he is the mute white stony shape
In search of brighter green to come. No way!
“Now it’s my turn to sing!”