Middle of Winter

The year goes wrathful out. And little days

Are scattered wide like huts amid the winter,

And nights that have no light, nor any hours,

And gray morning indecisive pictures.

Summertime, autumn days, all of it forgotten,

And brownish death has every fruit collected.

And other chilly stars there are in darkness,

That from the upper deck we never knew.

Trackless is every life now. And a muddle

is every path. And none can say where that ends,

And him that seeks it, if he any yet finds

He sees it mute and trembling emptied-out hands.

Georg Heym