Fyodor Tyutchev
The Alps

Throughout blue nights
glisten mountains’ eyes,
eyes of death, eyes of fright,
by icy horror paralysed.
Charmed by some spell
till Dawn’s first beams,
in hazy menace they dream,
like all those ancient kings who fell.

But let the East begin to shine
and the fatal charms are broken.
High up and first in line
the eldest brother has awoken.
From the head of the next there rolls
a stream onto the heads of all the others,
till, glistening in crowns of gold,
all the family’s resurrected with the brothers!

Translated by Frank Jude