The Winter Warrior

I heard the winter warrior riding by,
I heard his chariot in the night chill sky,
Its ice-wheels rattled while the wind did blow,
Scattering hail — ice-gravel — on the earth below.

I felt the coldness as he rode roughly past,
His snowy ice-shod horses, racing fast,
Went by my window, then, gone in a trice,
Only the patterns of their breath left, etched in ice.

— Daphne Lister