The Ice-Gatherers

In icy twilight stole, The Ice-gatherers come, With iron pike and steady hand. They fracture all the shiny calm, With voice and laughter; till the loom Of silence rends as under flame, The glassy surface, and the sparkling foam. They pick the sharp pure splinters, From trapped air in the ice, A pale blue glow glimmers, In their busy, callous hands, Like a hapless heart, a silent grave, They take and take; From frost to fire, from fire to mist, Through this endless cycle of a night.

Now lift your body, O tired crowd; Above that sky, apathetic stars, This vivid world bespeaks our dreams, Of boundless life, far away, obscured.

In the bitter silence linger, With breath held tight, unspoken dreams await.

• Valery Briussov