Hyperboreans

Now the hinges of the year have rust on every rivet;
The deeper we will have to breathe the air just to outlive it.
The more the sun shines in the door before the month of fevers,
The more comes snow and so we know Cruel Boreas deceives us.
And if at twelve o'clock I walk a shadow's length behind you,
The deeper I will have to dig the driven snow to find you.

Alas, alas, Cruel Boreas, you chill our very marrow;
We will strew our pillow with the rue and with the yarrow.
When Boreas again begins to blow a little harder,
We'll go to our unwed bed therein to make our ardour.
When Boreas at last relents the sun again is shining,
Let the rhythm guide the sense and the sense misguide the rhyming.

Now we're the Hyperboreans -- we dwell beyond the tundra;
That's the name we glory in and the name we labour under.
If you would glory in a thing, it may as well be labour.
That's ever been the reasoning and governs our behaviour,
The only way to overbrim with love for every neighbour.