Boris Pasternak
White Night

A far-off time arises in my memory,
The house in the Petersburg Quarters,
A humble daughter of the modest gentry,
Born in Kursk, you are here taking courses.

You are cute, — you have many admirers.
This white night, it is only us two,
Sprawling out on your windowsill, tireless,
From up high, looking down at the view.

The streetlamps, like gaseous butterflies,
Trembled from the morning's first chills
And the words that I whispered in quiet sighs
Resembled the slumbering hills.

By some chance, we were caught here together,
By one mystery, in the timid fidelity,
As the landscape beyond the Neva, —
Lands of Petersburg stretching unendingly.

In those distant, impregnable thickets,
On this vernal and pale white night,
The nightingales' thunderous singing
Awoke all the woodlands in sight.

Their song was blaring with emotion,
And those birds in a magical chorus,
Evoked both, passion and commotion,
From the depths of the mesmerized forest.

To those parts, like a barefooted wanderer,
By the fence, the night slowly walked
And behind it, from the windowsill, rambling,
Ran the trail of an overheard talk.

Within an earshot of our conversations,
In the fenced enclosures of the garden,
The apple and the berry trees, with patience,
Put on the sunlight's glowing garments.

And trees, like phantoms, seeming white,
By the roadside, gathered in line,
To pay their dues to the receding white night
That has witnessed so much in its time.

Translated by Andrey Kneller