III

Blue, clogged with purple, Mists uncoil themselves: Sparkling to the horizon, I see the snow alone.

In the deep blue chasm, Boats sleep under gold thatch; Icicle-like trees fret Faintly rose-touched sky.

Under their heaped snow-eaves, Leaden houses shiver. Through thin blue crevasses, Trickles an icy stream.

The pines groan white-laden, The waves shiver, struck by the wind; Beyond from treeless horizons, Broken snow-peaks crawl to the sea.

Wearily the snow glares, Through the grey silence, day after day, Mocking the colourless cloudless sky With the reflection of death.

There is no smoke through the pine tops, No strong red boatmen in pale green reeds, No herons to flicker an instant, No lanterns to glow with gay ray.

No sails beat up to the harbour, With creaking cordage and sailors’ song. Somnolent, bare-poled, indifferent, They sleep, and the city sleeps.

Mid-winter about them casts, Its dreary fortifications: Each day is a gaunt grey rock, And death is the last of them all.

Over the sluggish snow, Drifts now a pallid weak shower of bloom; Boredom of fresh creation, Death-weariness of old returns.

White, white blossom, Fall of the shattered cups day on day: Is there anything here that is not ancient, That has not bloomed a thousand years ago?

Under the glare of the white-hot day, Under the restless wind-rakes of the winter, White blossom or white snow scattered, And beneath them, dark, the graves.

Dark graves never changing, White dream drifting, never changing above them: O that the white scroll of heaven might be rolled up, And the naked red lightning thrust at the smouldering earth!