Alone [He] Stare[s] Into the Frost's White Face

Alone [he] stare[s] into the frost’s white face.   
It’s going nowhere, and [he]—from nowhere.   
Everything ironed flat, pleated without a wrinkle:   
Miraculous, the breathing plain.   

Meanwhile the sun squints at this starched poverty—
The squint itself consoled, at ease . . .   
The ten-fold forest almost the same . . .   
And snow crunches in the eyes, innocent, like clean bread.  

Osip Mandelstam
January 16, 1937