Klaus

Now it is winter indeed and Saint Nicholas tramps among the pines

With two full sacks on his donkey stuffed with toys for the children’s designs.

Autumn has fallen to dust. The snow has come for good.

Yes, we surely have finished with autumn and with summer and the season as they stood.

(Oh, all that we have not finished and the tortuous black road of yesterday
Which wound beneath the tattered birch and the oak that scented mists of grey!)
All is white, all identical. Everything is free of stain.
The earth is fair in heaven’s robe that over its rags has lain,
Bad and good both are annulled, everything is new and starts afresh.
The absence of being lies below and overhead the shadows’ mesh.
But in a world of white only Angels can thoroughly be at their ease.
There is not a man alive in all of the diocese,
There is not a soul awake, not a single youthful admirer,
At the hour when you come in the night, O powerful Bishop of Myra!