1 A ghostlike scene is glimmering Weak choirs of shades remain With silk has draped Melpomene Her temple's windowpanes Frost crunches in the yard Black chariots stand in row People and objects are disheveled Street crackles with hot snow. 2 Bit by bit the servants pick apart The abandoned heap of bear furs A butterfly flies over and departs, And rose plants are draped in furs. Gnats and boxes fashionably shimmer From the theater light sweat moves in streams On the street the flat lamps glimmer And like clouds arises heavy steam. 3 Coachmen have grown tired of their voices And the night is black as if with coal. Do not worry, darling Eurydice, That our winter is unearthly cold. Sweeter than the song of the Italians Is the sound of Russian tongue to me, For the sounds of harps from foreign countries Clamor in it with great mystery. 4 Smell of smoke rises from lean mutton With the mounds of snow the street is ringed From a blissful songlike semitone Flying at us is immortal spring, That this aria will sound forever: "To green meadows you will return" And to our feet falls a living sparrow On the snow that is so hot, it burns. By Osip Mandelshtam Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat
