To Johnanna

Often I hear your steps

Ring through the alley.

In the small brown garden

The blueness of your shadow.

In the dawning bower

I sat in silence with the wine.

A dropp of blood

Sank from your temple

Into the singing glass

Hour of unending gloom.

From stars a snowy wind

Blows through the foliage.

Any death, the night

The pale man suffers.

Your purple mouth

Dwells a wound in me.

As if I came from the green

Fir hills and legends

Of our homeland,

Which we long forgot -

Who are we? Blue lament

Of a mossy forest spring,

Where the violets

Secretly scent in spring.

A peaceful village in summer

Once sheltered the childhood

Of our race,

Dying off now at the evening-

Hill the white grandchildren

We dream the terror

Of our nightly blood

Shadows in stony city.