En Rencontrant Les Brittaniques.(Translation) . Poem by Michael Walker

The poem, written in couplets, is about the Pontiac Rebellion of the Indians against the British in North America, in 1763. It is written from an Indian perspective. It is a so-called 'post-colonial' poem. The British are shown as unscrupulous colonizers, who introduce diseases like smallpox to the natives. In contrast, the sky is a pure lavender blue; so was the snow pure 'in the dead of winter'. The two frozen streams coming together symbolize the cold-hearted British and the unresponsive Indian people.
There is also a Northern Ireland application to the British colonizing all of Ireland, then the North. Northern Ireland remains British to this day.
Paul Muldoon was from Co. Armagh, but he emigrated to the U.S. about the time he wrote 'Meeting the British'. You can read Muldoon's life on Poem Hunter.