♪Someday, my love, there will be songs to sing♫

Yay! There is finally snow on the ground, so I can post the winter poem I found without feeling guilty. I am rather spastastic (yes, Firefox, that is a word. I just made it up.) today due to waking up at 5 and drinking lots of caffeine and getting into the Christmas spirit. Well, I made Christmas gifts if that counts as the Christmas spirit. I think  we'll say it counts. I even attempted to remember how to play "Carol of the Bells" on the piano. This is astonishing since I hate pretty much all Christmas music. I'm Scrooge in a much younger, smaller package! Actually, my high school choir always sang "Carol of the Bells" in our Christmas concert, so I kind of know the words. Except two years I sang it as a soprano (which I am), and two years I sang it as an alto (which I am most assuredly not). I tend to sing the beginning half of the words from whence I spiral down into "ding dong ding dong", which is the alto part. Congratulations to me for a long pointless story!

Boris Pasternak won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1958 for Dr. Zhivago. It was the only novel he ever wrote (that I am aware of. He did write a "novel in verse", but I'm not sure entirely what that entails.), but it was not published in his own homeland until 1988 (which, if I do say so myself, was a very good year). He turned down the Prize, but it was presented posthumously to his son in 1989. I think that's a very ambiguous sentence, and I apologize.  Interestingly enough, he has a planet named after him, the 3508 Pasternak. Though here in the West, we know him best for Dr. Zhivago, he was much more highly influential and well known as a poet. He set the groundwork for much contemporary Russian poetry. He also was a translator in his homeland translating Shakespeare and Goethe as well as many others into Russian. Without further ado and more pointless rambling from yours truly, I present Winter's Night.

Winter's Night


Blizzards were blowing everywhere
Throughout the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.


As midgets in the summer fly
Towards a flame,
The snowflakes from the yard swarmed to
The window pane. 


And, on the glass, bright snowy rings
And arrows formed.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned. 


And on the white illumined ceiling
Shadows were cast,
As arms and legs and destinies
Fatefully crossed. 


Two slippers fell on to the floor
With a light sound,
And waxen tears dripped from the candle
On to a gown. 


No object in the misty whiteness
Could be discerned.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.


A mild draught coming from the corner
Blew on the candle,
Seduction's heat raised two wings crosswise
As might an angel. 


It snowed and snowed that February
All through the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.

Disclaimer: I do not speak one iota of Russian, so I sincerely hope this translation is good.