For the howling north wind and winter, brother, For the morning star shining bright. For our home and our land and our praying mother, For bustling cities and rivers of ice, We raise our cups—for the days yet to come, For love and for joy in the light. When the lakes lie frozen, silent and hollow, As snowstorms dance through meadows and fields, We drink and we dream of the streams we will follow, Recalling the sunsets in Terrvalak’s glow, The farms shining bright among meadows in slumber, And shadows that dance in the trees. For the hardest of ice crusts, the bitterest weather, For the trembling hands that are seeking their way, For the hungry, the weary, and those left with nothing— For tables set full and for sleigh bells that chime, For hands that are weary, in death finding peace. We raise up our cups, friend, to life! At peace and rejoicing in starlit December, We cast off the burdens of sorrow and strife. We rise in the glow of the stars that still shimmer, We sense all around us the night of the blessed— For them and for earth, for the heavens and us, We raise up our cups, friend, to life!
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