The snow was falling thick that night
like tiny feathers to the ground
while stiff white fossil-coral trees
Stood still as statues all around


And in their midst a mansion rose
with towers and frozen weather-vane
Where sparkling pavé diamond snows
encrusted every window pane

The match-girl shivered in the cold
then made a spy-hole in the ice
And peered into a golden realm,
an ante-room to paradise

But all the velvets and brocades,
the glowing fir-tree there inside
Appeared to her like pictures painted
on a magic lantern slide

For in her world these plush divans
with cushions bursting at the seams
The draperies and tapestries
would always be the stuff of dreams


Two cats with buttonholes for eyes
and fur that shone like watered silk
Were purring by an open fire
no doubt with bellies full of milk

While what our little match girl ate
was scarce enough to feed a fly
Though she was told by men in gold
her feast was waiting in the sky

No, here on earth, these coddled cats
like pharaohs basking in the heat,
Or padding round on velvet paws,
had choicer food than her to eat

So when she saw the gingerbread,
the frosted fruit, the marzipan
She wondered how this hunger could
be part of the Almighty's plan

And then, beside two girls, a youth
with dreamy gaze and rippling hair
Came in and hardly seemed to see
the many treasures waiting there

The  match-girl watched him button-eyed
as if he were a fire-plumed bird
Or some chimeric creature from
a fairy tale that she had heard

And as she dreamt she felt such joy
though hunger gnawed her like a mouse
For now she stood with him right there
inside that warm, ancestral house

They danced a sweeping ballroom waltz
while she was draped in crispest white
With diamonds sprinkled in her hair
like stars upon a cloudless night

Then as the lilting music swelled
he picked her up and twirled her round
Until, just like a swan in flight,
her feet were lifted off the ground

A swan who'd left her murky pond
with all the fetters lurking there
To reach up for the firmament
and taste its sweet, untainted air
                      ii
Next day as she was hard at work
she passed the house and there they were,
Her prince dressed all in powder-blue
the sisters swathed in sable fur

They'd flown down from their iv'ry tower
to tread with serfs upon the street!
Oh how she longed to be in silk
with buckled shoes upon her feet!

But as she blushed and stepped aside
to let the "dvoryanstvo".pass
The boy stared through her sallow face
as if it were a pane of glass

Dvoryanstvo=Russian nobility