Alexei Savrasov, “Winter Landscape” (1871)

The night light

I would like to walk in the snow
Through the darkness of the blue night
On the road to my old home
With the window that’s full of light.

Looking back, I sometimes see only
The cold field and the frozen oak
Then I smell, while walking lonely,
The far fragrance of chimney smoke.

And the light of the window’s coming,
Coming close. I’m happy, that’s true.
I can see all the stars above me,
And, of course, they can see me too.

Everywhere, wherever I go,
I miss not my warm home’s delight,
But my chilly walks in the snow
Through the darkness of the blue night.

On the route to heaven

On the route to heaven, the train passes by stations.
We are chatting, ignoring the rumble of wheels.
Being shocked by the noise, we invent regulations
Which keep us from escaping from the prison of dreams.

Near every station, there is a ghost town,
Where people are living somehow like ants.
In my youth I was crazy, I felt safe and sound
In just one of these towns, I believed in my chance.

We don’t know what we really have or we haven’t.
Everything is just movies—even stars, even rain.
Only woken up passengers will come to heaven.
Some of us will be sleeping all the way on the train.