Winter night

Not a wingbeat went through the world;

silent and brilliant lay the white snow.

Not a puff of cloud hung in the starry canopy,

not one wave surged in the torpid lake.

From the depths climbed a lake-tree,

encased in ice up to its top;

upon its branches climbed the water nymph,

gazing up through the green ice.

There I stood upon the thin glass

that separated me from the black depths;

Close beneath my feet I saw

her white beauty, limb upon limb.

With smothered sorrow she groped

here and there on the hard barrier.

I will never forget her dark expression;

always, always, it will remain in my mind!