The Barrier Silence

The silence was deep with a breathe like sleep
     As our sledge runners slid on the snow,
The fate-full fall of our fur clad feet
     Struck mute like a silent blow
On a questioning  "hush" as the settling crust
     Shrank shivering over the floe;
And the sledge in its track sent a whisper back
      Which was lost in a white fog-bow.
And this was the thought that the silence wrought
      As it scorched and froze us through,
Though secrets hidden are all forbidden
     Till god means man to know,
We might be the men god meant to know
     The heart of the barrier snow,
     In the heat of the sun, and the glow
      And the glare from the glistening floe,
As it scorched and froze us through and through
    With the bite of the drifting snow.

       Doctor Edward Wilson