The world is pure and hard and white.
Yesterday the north wind exiled
Dreams of fog
Blind and lost
And without end...
Let today be stopped by the wind's breath.
Snow shines all around,
May the shadow of hills consume
Pale azure skies,
Trembling in their light.
And in the shadow -
Caught in the glory of its freezing
Let the river stretch out,
It has a kind of armour -
Emerald ice dark
And gleaming snow,
Until its line is lost
Greenish and twisting
There in the distance...
Where the light of day burns
In bright white flames ---
As if the sun had fallen
On shapeless ice
Hard as crystals
And been shattered.
I shall close my eyes.
Let my blood sing inside me
Its music in my ears:
'The world is pure.'
It seemed to me:
At one with the heart of the world,
My heart was a diamond;
And would flow with the currents
Running beneath the icy skin.
'Pure... The world...
Pure...'
February / March 1903