What did I know of tenderness, till you?

What did I learn of desire? So smothered

was I, and yet, grieved heart still keened, sea-mewed

for absent mate - to date, undiscovered.

...

Shy soul did whisper: 'There is more than this,

this lovelessness, this emptiness, this cursed,

rot-necklaced, reeking stink of albatross,

this dearth of joie de vivre, of worth and worse.

...

Wind-burned and well-trodden on, suffering mind

shrivelled up; exiled to an arctic floe,

small wonder that I lost all hope – unkind

love was all I'd known – vicious mistletoe.

...

But love still draws strength though buried in snow;

beneath the avalanche, the snowdrop grows.