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The great plain is white, motionless and voiceless.
Not a noise, not a sound; all life is extinguished.
But sometimes one hears, like a mournful lament,
Some shelterless dog howling at the edge of a wood.
No more songs in the air, beneath our feet no more stubble.
Winter has fallen upon all blossoming;
Stripped trees raise on the horizon
Their whitened skeletons like phantoms.
The moon is broad and pale and seems to hurry.
One would say she is cold in the great austere sky.
With her mournful gaze she sweeps the earth,
And, seeing all deserted, hastens to leave us.
And cold fall upon us the rays she darts,
Fantastic gleams that she goes scattering;
And the snow is lit afar, sinisterly,
By the strange reflections of the pallid light.
Oh! the terrible night for the little birds!
An icy wind shivers and runs along the paths;
They, having no more the shaded refuge of cradles,
Cannot sleep on their frozen feet.
In the great bare trees that the frost covers
They are there, all trembling, with nothing to protect them;
With their anxious eye they watch the snow,
Waiting until day for the night that does not come
Guy de Maupassant
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-night-of-snow-guy-de-maupassant/