The recipient of a Pulitzer prize for poetry in 1935, Robert P. Tristram Coffin taught at Bowdoin College and was a well-known historian as well as a poet. Walking by himself on a winter night in this poem, Coffin makes an unexpected connection with a stranger. 

WINTER FRIENDS

By Robert P. Tristram Coffin 

The high cold moon rides through the frost,

The branches of the trees make lace

Along the drifted snow beneath,

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There is no friendliness in the place,

Except in twelve small squares of light

Set in a house’s midnight side.

Someone is awake with me

On the cold earth’s wintry ride,

Through the pathways of the space,

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He and I go on like friends,

Saying nothing, quietly,

To our separate unknown ends.

 


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