The Winter Palace

何威廉

The Winter Palace

By William He

Dull gray gleam skips and flutters across the sky,
Blue music descending luminous stairs.
Snowflakes float through frosty air,
Being halfway up to the Jordan Staircase,
Momentarily envelops the temple like flesh to a soul.
Shadow encircled by lamplights,
Peacock with its sweet tuneful strains,
Gold deer sensing there is someone riding it backwards here.
Marble angels and portraits whispering,
Peter the Great through Petersburg forming then.

Birches are snowballing,
With Tchaikovsky the spirit is singing,
Aurora's tiptoes in rhythmic fluttering well.
Voltaire, the philosopher,
Writing to Catherine the Great,
Their emotions brewed blue with quiver heart.
A melancholy Pushkin,
The cruel thorns have pierced him,
The voices of pain and grief,
And thus his wild lament was poured.
The Romanov's episode,
An unforgivable saga of the sorrow,
Beyond the shadows of a thick forest.

Sad and monotonous in the Baltic,
No sea lane to Hyperborea exists,
The towers of all forms do like a maze.
Tenderly and always so alone,
Light shines dim on his silhouette,
Over Tolstoy's bitter-tainted lips,
Karenina is away without distraction,
Painting a fragile picture of the dusk.
Sapphires and agates flounder about,
As in that shadowy and misty strife,
Even pray to break every curse of this chaotic world,
Snow is deep on the ground,
The tears are the beginning of its melting,
The dim and the half-light,
What sufferings Dead Souls of sky is undergoing,
As is Gogol when he wrote the ending of his story.

Geometries trouble its decrepit dream,
Through the rippling veil at daybreak,
The double-headed Eagle in soaring flight.
Between light and shade,
The fine and white aureoles are roving,
Icon lamps starring on the Neva River.
Palace Bridge opens and shuts its jaws,
The surreal scenes ignoring the heights.
Levitation in pulsating astral melodies,
A spiritually naked, sublime and sacred,
Facing the future buoyed by frippery and upbeat froth.
Man in a Land of the Crimson Star,
In the delirium with interrupted breath.
The people watch the world as it watches them,
Beyond the perceived horizon-line,
Delusion more transient than the ray.


莺啼序 冬宫

作者：何威廉

青荧冷光忽闪，
且弦声轻坠。
飞花散、
曲线阶梯，
拱弧天使流憩。
影随扈、
鸾鸣孔雀，
身骑野鹿花前醉。
共浮雕肖像，
双簧梁苑韶岁。

雪色枝头，
马林扮戏，
记美人浓睡。
伏尔泰、
鹤附音书，
烛光消隐如晦。
普希金、
黑溪滴血，
唱不尽、
风琴孤唳。
冻时空，
罗曼诺夫，
幽云绥祭。

烟波惆怅，
海珀飘浮，
缠结塔尖对。
离索久、
模糊背影，
濡褐须髯，
惹靛双颜，
玉树抟谜。
朦胧深殿，
冥茫昔梦，
随风化作烟和雾，
乍凛寒、
四渎佩伦泪。
微光盏荡，
因笑岁月无猜，
莫弹长亭悲恚。

蔫红残梦,
凝紫晨曦，
又两头鹰鸷。
忽明暗、
激光摹绘。
涅瓦星灯，
桥面开合，
魂嵌千字。
跳珠六莹，
灵虚尘起，
重逢恰是偶回首，
料红场、
半似前生事。
淡浓暮月朝云，
摆渡尘寰，
卜邻曾愧。  


Notes:
"Jordan Staircase": The principal or Jordan Staircase of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg is so called because on the Feast of the Epiphany the Tsar descended this imperial staircase in state for the ceremony of the "Blessing of the Waters" of the Neva River, a celebration of Christ's baptism in the Jordan River. The staircase is one of the few parts of the palace retaining the original 18th-century style.
“Peacock clock”: The Peacock Clock is a large automaton featuring three life-sized mechanical birds. It was manufactured by the entrepreneur James Cox in the 2nd half of the 18th century and through the influence of Grigory Potemkin it was acquired by Catherine the Great in 1781. Today it is a prominent exhibit in the collections of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.  
“Hyperborea”: In Greek mythology, Hyperborea was the land located to the far north of the known world and it was so remote it was considered even beyond the North Wind. There a legendary race known as the Hyperboreans lived and worshipped the sun god Apollo.
“Karenina”: Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever written, Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1875 to 1877, all but the last part appearing in the periodical The Russian Messenger.
“Gogol”: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol was one of the first to use the technique of the grotesque, in works such as "The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", and "Nevsky Prospekt". These stories, and others such as "Diary of a Madman", have also been noted for their proto-surrealist qualities.

何威廉

Snowflakes float through frosty air,
Being halfway up to the Jordan Staircase,
Momentarily envelops the temple like flesh to a soul......