A ghostlike scene is glimmering

1

A ghostlike scene is glimmering 
Weak choirs of shades remain 
With silk has draped Melpomene 
Her temple's windowpanes 
Frost crunches in the yard 
Black chariots stand in row 
People and objects are disheveled 
Street crackles with hot snow. 

2 

Bit by bit the servants pick apart 
The abandoned heap of bear furs 
A butterfly flies over and departs, 
And rose plants are draped in furs. 
Gnats and boxes fashionably shimmer 
From the theater light sweat moves in streams 
On the street the flat lamps glimmer 
And like clouds arises heavy steam. 

3 

Coachmen have grown tired of their voices 
And the night is black as if with coal. 
Do not worry, darling Eurydice, 
That our winter is unearthly cold. 
Sweeter than the song of the Italians 
Is the sound of Russian tongue to me, 
For the sounds of harps from foreign countries 
Clamor in it with great mystery. 

4 

Smell of smoke rises from lean mutton 
With the mounds of snow the street is ringed 
From a blissful songlike semitone 
Flying at us is immortal spring, 
That this aria will sound forever: 
"To green meadows you will return" 
And to our feet falls a living sparrow 
On the snow that is so hot, it burns.

By Osip Mandelshtam 
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat 
https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat