From Songs and Dances of Death by Modest Mussorgsky.
Unknown translator.
Still is the forest, no soul is in sight...
Winds are lamenting and howling...
Far away yonder where dark falls the night
Something uncanny is prowling.
See! Over there! where the shades gather black
Death has waylaid some poor peasant;
Now he invited him to dance the Trepak;
Sings him a song fair and pleasant;
"Ho, my poor worker so bent and grey,
Drunken with vodka, and wandering astray;
By the snow-fiend blinded, led by fitful shadows,
Through the pathless forest, over the trackless meadows.
What is thy portion by work and sorrow?
Rest here, poor peasant, until tomorrow.
See, a coverlet so white and warm I've found you;
Rest and watch the dancing snow-flakes whirl around you.
Soft as the swan's down, the bed where you lie!
Hey! Sing good-night, fierce gale, as you fly.
Sing, wild wind, his hush-song, through the long dark night,
Let the weary worker sleep till morning light.
Forests and fields, and the cloud-wrack sweeping,
Darkness and storm and the pale drifts heaping,
Snow-flakes lightly hovering weaves a spotless covering,
Fit for a stainless childhood, round this poor clod sleeping...
Rest, rest, poor friend, slumber, happy fellow,
Dream that the summer is bright, the harvest yellow!
The sun shines, the sickles swing,
Hear the skylark singing."
From the REC Music Foundation's Lied and Song text page, http://www.lieder.net/. Public domain, to the best of my knowledge.