Boris Pasternak
About these verses

On pavements I will pound them out
Of sun and glass combined;
In winter, let the loft resound
As mildewed corners read my lines.

The attic will itself declaim,
With bow to wintry window frame,
And up to ledge and roof will rise
A leap of wonders, woes, and signs.

A month and more the storm will sweep
And blur where things begin and end.
I'll recollect the sun! — and see:
The world has changed again.

Then Christmas, like a daw, will peer,
And fresh carousing day will show
My love and me a host of things
We never dreamed to know.

In scarf, with hand before my eyes,
I'll shout outdoors and ask the kids:
Oh tell me, dear ones, if you please,
Just what millennium this is?

Who beat a pathway to my door,
That hole all blocked with snow,
While I with Byron had a smoke
And drank with Edgar Poe?

While in Daryál, as with a friend,
In hell, in arsenals of truth,
I dipped — like Lermontov in dread,
Like lips — my life in life's vermouth.

Translated by James E. Falen