Uuuuuuhhhhh that changes eeeveryyything xBut I still don ' t think gel is fine . There is no real way to call a frozen forest as just frost in French afaik , so what would naturally come to me is calling the whole thing , i . e . the frozen forest . But it would loose its metaphorical aspect . Finally and hearing your additionnal context , i ' d say Nous drivons tous dans le froid , replacing frost with cold . ONE LAST THING ! !! Is the all used as in we ' re all mad here or more like the floor is all slippery ! ? Because that changes the sentence too ! Edit Just found this comes from , so I ' ll be able to make a real translationChre enfant , dit l ' esprit doucement , nous sommes tous perdus dans le froid . I ' ll explain , now 3 to croon translates as chantonner which implies a melody or ronronner which is used but has a feline connotation , but this isn ' t what the text means . The greeneyed spirit is saying this like a mother would tell a truth to her child , like we all make mistakes sometimes , it ' s alright , so this comes out in French as dire doucement which is roughly tell softly . And for the last part , the only real way to translate what the spirit says is to say that we are all lost in the cold , which really keeps the meaning of a lost child in a frozen forest . This is my interpretation , but I really don ' t see any other way . Nice poem btw