Sergey Esenin
Fresh Snow

Out on horseback in the stillness.
Hooves resounding in the snow.
Only crows in dusty shrillness
Cackled in the meadow’s glow.

Held by unseen fable’s rapture,
Forest slept beneath the drifts.
There in kerchief’s frozen capture
Pine displayed her snowy shifts.

Crone-like, doubled over, leaning
On her walking stick she’d shrunk.
And in topmost branches, preening,
Pecked a bird upon her trunk.

Horse leapt forward into blackness.
Tumbled snow in spreading shawl.
Now the road with ribbon’s slackness
Stretched itself in endless thrall.

Translated by Rupert Moreton