Boris Pasternak
The White Night

Long ago in a time I still well see,
There’s a house on St. Petersburg’s far end
And a landlady’s daughter — not wealthy;
You take courses; you are Kursk born and bred.

You are pretty — and men duly follow.
As this night wears all white to entice us,
We both perch on your window and wallow
In the light where your skyscraper rises.

Like some gaseous butterflies, lanterns
Flutter meekly as daybreak advances.
What I’m quietly telling you matters
And is so much like sleepy expanses.

We’re engulfed by the same mystic glamour,
Each a timid but faithful believer,
As St. Petersburg, its panorama
Stretching over the infinite Neva.

Farther on, the impassable spaces
Watch the night in the white of her spring signs
While the nightingales rumble their praises
And so deafen the tree-laden confines.

Crazy twitter rolls on in devotion
Of the birdie, its voice so committed
That it causes delight and commotion
In the depth of a mesmerized thicket.

And the night, a barefooted wayfarer,
Picks her way down the fence to that country.
From the windowsill on, she’s the bearer
Of our banter that’s eavesdropped so bluntly.

As the echo of chatting advances
Through the orchards fenced in top to bottom,
All the cherry and apple tree branches
Slip on robes of a new off-white blossom.

And like phantoms in white, the trees venture
In a crowd to the roadside and gently
Wave to make what is their farewell gesture
At the White Night that’s seen more than plenty. 

Translated by Yuri Menis