Boris Pasternak
The Wedding

Guests crossed over where the bride
Had the party on,
Good to dance and play all night
The accordion.

There, behind her father’s door,
Party babbling went,
Hushed from one till early dawn
By a sheet of felt.

Sleep at dawn is sweet, and when
Every dream should count,
The accordion again
Sang and moved on out.

Splash of palms and shine of beads,
Noise and buzz of fun
Gushed again right off the reeds
Of the bold bayan.

On and on and on, the shreds
Of chastushka beat
Made it onto sleepers’ beds
From the raucous feast.

Round went one, as white as snow,
Spurred by yells and pranks,
Like a peahen on the go,
Swaying buxom flanks.

Chin high up, she proudly pranced,
Every move spot on;
Down the road again she danced
On and on and on.

All at once the rowdy game
And the circling craze,
In a sweep, flew down the drain —
Gone without a trace.

There were none who could have napped —
Sleepers had no chance.
Business echoes overlapped
With the chat and laughs.

Kits of pigeons dashed up high,
Whirls of blue-gray dots,
Upward to an endless sky,
Off their lofty cots.

Someone sent them on a chase
Thinking half-awake:
They should bring more happy days
In the wedding’s wake.

Life is also but a swift
Moment to dissolve
In the others as a gift
Of ourselves to all.

Hail the wedding pushing deep
With a window shove;
Hail the song and hail the sleep;
Hail the blue-gray dove. 

Translated by Yuri Menis