This poem was written by Denise Levertov, a very gifted poet. I remember reading through a book of her poems when I was in my first year of college. I think, however, that ideally this kind of poetry requires a person who has had enough life experience to be able to weigh the ideas which the poems allude to. This poem "Red Snow" is the last part of a three part story. I am sharing it here, because it seems to me that it's a very good metaphor for how intellectuals in countries like Canada and Britain vainly pursue the sport of persuasion, as the method by which they seek to effect change in their society.

Crippled with desire, he questioned it.
Evening upon the heights, juice of the pomegranate:
who could connect it with sunlight?

He took snow into his 
red from cold hands
It would not acknowledge the blood inside,
stayed white, melted only.

And all summer, beyond how many plunging valleys
                                    remote verdant lesser peaks,
still there were fields 
                        by day silver
                        hidden often in thunderheads,
but faithful before night, crimson.
He knew it was red snow

He grows tall, and sets out.
The story, inexorably, is of arrival long after, by dark.
Tells he stood waiting
                    bewildered
                       in stinging silver towards dawn
                    and looked over the abysses, back;

            the height of his home,snowy, red,
            taunted him. Fable snuffs out
                                                What did he do?

                        He grew old.
                    With bloodbright hands, he wrought 
                icy monuments.
            Beard and long hair flying he rode the whirlwind
keening the praises of red snow.