And with my glass I raise a toast
To thee who walks proud in shadow
Prouder still in moonlight ‘tween boles
With shades ne’er seen by eyes o’ men

To your health, I may say and yet it is
To mine own health I hold in regard
Hope for placation and pity in equal measure

What will we read in the bones cast
From your meal that we brought you
In fear and in awe and in rapture

Becrowned in wilting flowers few
Twixt ivy and yarn and flax
Grown to die with each passing step

Should we hope to catch a sight
of your famed awesome beauty
or to pass unregarded ourselves

Through gifts fleet of foot
and soft of passage with
gentle hearts and minds

Who run along bow or berm
and search and store and stow
for the death that is winter

May we make sense of the mazes
of yew and holly and thorn so they
shall crumble at the prow of our journey