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,

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,

He and I go on like friends,

Saying nothing, quietly,

To our separate unknown ends.